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THE  HOLY  LAND  OF  ASIA  MINOR 


OCT  1 7  1914 


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HOLY  LAND  OF  ASIA  MINOR 


THE    SEVEN    CITIES    OF    THE    BOOK   OF 
REVELATION 

THEIR   PRESENT  APPEARANCE,    THEIR  HISTORY, 

THEIR  SIGNIFICANCE, 

AND    THEIR    MESSAGE    TO    THE    CHURCH    OF    TO-DAY 


BY 

REV.   FRANCIS   E.    CLARK,   D.D.,   LL.D. 

AUTHOR   OF   "OLD    HOMES   OF    NEW   AMERICANS,"    "THE 
CONTINENT   OF    OPPORTUNITY,"    ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1914 


COPYBIGHT,    1914,    BT 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  September,  1914 


TO  THE  MEMORY 

OF 

REV.   EDWARD   RIGGS,   D.D. 

FOR  MANY  TEAR3  AN  HONORED  MISSIONARY  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  BOARD  IN  TURKEY,  WHOSE  COURTESY, 
PATIENCE,  AND  KNOWLEDGE  OF  THE  NATIVE  LANGUAGES 
SMOOTHED    THE    DIFFICULTIES    OF    OUR    JOURNEY    TO    THE 

SEVEN   CITIES 

AND  WHO  HAS  SINCE  TAKEN  A  LONGER  JOURNEY  TO  THE 
NEW  JERUSALEM,  OF  WHICH,  ALSO,  THE  REVELATOB  WROTE 


TO 
MRS.   EDWARD   RIGGS 

AND    TO 

MY   WIFE 

MY    OTHER    TRAVELLING    COMPANIONS    IN   THE 

HOLY   LAND    OF   ASIA   MINOR 

THIS   BOOK   IS   DEDICATED 


INTRODUCTION 

When  we  speak  of  the  "Holy  Land" 
we  usually  refer  solely  to  the  little  sec- 
tion along  the  shores  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean, called  Palestine,  which  was  trodden 
by  the  feet  of  our  Lord  and  his  im- 
mediate disciples.  But  there  is  another 
Holy  Land  and  one  scarcely  less  sacred 
to  the  Christian.  It  is  the  Holy  Land  of 
Asia  Minor,  especially  its  western  part, 
which  was  comprised  largely  in  the  an- 
cient province  of  Asia.  Here  the  Apos- 
tles laboured  and  taught.  Here  some  of 
the  earliest  churches  were  formed.  Here 
martyrs  suffered  for  their  faith  as  in  no 
other  part  of  the  world. 

Over  these  hills    (and  a  traveller  in 
Asia  Minor  is  never  out  of  sight  of  them) 

•  • 

vu 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

and  along  these  river-courses  Paul  made 
his  toilsome  way,  and  Timothy  and  John 
Mark,  and,  in  later  years,  Irenaeus  and 
Polycarp  and  others  scarcely  less  distin- 
guished in  the  history  of  the  church. 

Through  the  ports  of  Smyrna  and 
Ephesus  so  many  eminent  Christians 
and  church  fathers  sailed  on  their  way 
to  Rome  and  to  death  that  they  were 
called  "The  Gateways  of  the  Martyrs." 

Here  Christianity  received  its  earliest 
development  as  a  universal  religion,  a 
faith  for  Jew  and  gentile  alike. 

Above  all,  it  was  here  that  the  gentle 
Apostle  who  leaned  on  Jesus'  breast 
planted  his  churches  and  watched  over 
them  with  more  than  a  father's  solici- 
tude, rejoicing  in  the  steadfastness  of 
some,  mourning  over  the  declension  of 
others,  and  to  them  he  wrote  the  mes- 
sages inspired  by  the  Spirit  of  God  which 
have  been  for  the  encouragement,  the 
comfort,  the  warning,  the  rebuke  of  the 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

churches  in  all  the  continents  and  in  all 
the  ages  since. 

In  this  Holy  Land  of  Asia  Minor,  as 
we  shall  see,  were  the  churches  that 
epitomised  all  the  churches  of  the  future, 
and  as  to-day  we  wander  beside  the 
Meander  and  the  Caicus  and  the  golden 
Pactolus;  as  we  stand  beside  the  ruins  of 
Satan's  Throne";  as  we  go  through  the 
open  door"  to  the  Regions  Beyond, 
which  the  church  of  Philadelphia  entered 
and  the  church  of  Laodicea  refused  to 
enter;  as  we  think  of  those  who,  among 
these  hills  and  valleys,  preached  and 
wrought  and  suffered  and  lived  and  died 
for  their  Lord,  and  who  have  left  their 
undying  impress  upon  the  churches  in  all 
the  ages,  we  say  to  ourselves:  "Take  off 
thy  shoes  from  off  thy  feet,  for  the  place 
whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground." 

It  had  long  been  my  dream  and  hope 
that  some  time  I  might  visit  the  site  of 


x  INTRODUCTION 

the  Seven  Cities  of  Asia.  Recently,  in 
connection  with  other  duties,  I  was  able 
to  carry  out  my  long-cherished  design  of 
visiting  the  sites  of  these  seven  historic 
cities.  It  was  considered  just  at  that 
time,  in  March,  1912,  a  somewhat  fool- 
hardy attempt  by  many  of  my  friends, 
since  Turkey  was  at  war  with  her  neigh- 
bours, her  harbours  were  mined  and  in 
danger  of  bombardment,  and  an  out- 
break of  cholera  was  threatened  at  any 
moment.  However,  the  lions  disappeared 
as  they  were  faced,  and  we  found  no 
serious  difficulty,  though  some  hard- 
ships and  many  inconveniences,  in  visit- 
ing Ephesus  and  Smyrna,  Pergamos  and 
Thyatira,  and  Sardis  and  Philadelphia 
and  Laodicea. 

It  is  surprising  how  few  people  attempt 
to  visit,  at  least  in  any  consecutive  man- 
ner, these  cities  of  the  Apocalypse.  Jeru- 
salem numbers  its  pilgrims  by  tens  of 
thousands.     Bethlehem,   Nazareth,   Da- 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

mascus  have  fewer,  but  still  a  great  com- 
pany each  year.  But  the  Seven  Cities  of 
Asia  Minor  to  which  the  Alpha  and 
Omega  wrote  wonderful  messages,  which 
were  not  for  them  alone  but  for  the 
churches  of  all  time,  are  seldom  visited 
and  still  more  seldom  described.  Li- 
braries of  volumes  have  been  written 
about  Jerusalem  and  the  holy  places  of 
Palestine,  but  the  literature  of  the  holy 
places  of  Asia  Minor  is  scanty  indeed. 

Ephesus,  being  but  a  short  distance 
from  the  great  port  of  Smyrna,  is  visited 
by  many  tourists,  or  at  least  many  get  as 
far  as  Ayasolouk,  the  railroad  station 
three  miles  from  the  ruins  of  ancient 
Ephesus,  though  many  of  these  tourists 
are  satisfied  with  a  hasty  glimpse  of  the 
ruins  of  the  Church  of  Saint  John,  so 
called,  the  few  scattering  marbles  that 
mark  the  site  of  the  ancient  Temple  of 
Diana,  and  a  good  dinner  at  the  Ephesus 
Hotel,  after  which  they  return  on  a  fast 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

train  to  Smyrna  and  the  steamer  which 
brought  them  there,  having  accomplished 
their  hasty  mission  to  one  of  the  Seven 
Churches  in  the  space  of  some  five  hours. 
Even  the  missionaries  and  Christian 
workers  who  live  in  the  country  have 
seldom  been  permitted  by  their  arduous 
duties  to  visit  these  sites  of  such  intense 
interest  to  the  Christian.  But  such  a 
journey  now  is  altogether  practicable. 

Since  the  Young  Turks  came  into 
power  the  former  restrictions  and  annoy- 
ances that  attended  travel  in  Turkey 
have  been  largely  removed.  The  Turk- 
ish custom-house  has  no  longer  any  terror 
for  the  honest  traveller.  The  officials 
are  polite  and  courteous  and  are  willing 
to  give  what  information  they  possess. 
The  meagre  railway  service  of  Turkey 
has  been  extended  of  late  years  so  that 
the  traveller  can  go  by  rail  to  six  of  the 
Seven  Cities,  and  he  can  travel  with  as 
much  safety  to  life  and  limb,  if  not  with 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

as  much  comfort,  as  he  can  in  England 
or  America.  On  one  line  of  railway,  which 
is  controlled  by  a  British  company,  he 
can,  by  starting  from  Smyrna,  visit 
Ephesus  and  Laodicea  and  the  no  less 
interesting  Hierapolis,  which  lie  to  the 
south  and  east  of  Smyrna.  By  another 
line  he  can  reach,  in  a  few  hours,  Sar- 
dis  and  Philadelphia,  which  are  almost 
directly  east  of  Smyrna.  Going  north 
from  Sardis,  on  a  branch  line,  he  comes 
to  Thyatira.  Northeast  of  Thyatira  is 
Soma,  the  present  terminus  of  this  French 
line  of  railway.  A  six-hour  journey  from 
Soma  by  araba  or  on  horseback  brings 
him  to  Pergamos,  where  "  Satan's  Throne  " 
was,  the  only  one  of  the  Seven  Cities 
which  is  not  directly  on  a  railway  line. 

There  are  many  by-products  of  such  a 
journey  which  should  not  be  forgotten, 
though  not  of  chief  interest  to  the  Chris- 
tian traveller.  The  scenery  in  which 
one  finds  himself  in  visiting  the  Seven. 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

Churches  is  grand  and  picturesque,  almost 
beyond  the  power  of  expression.  The  trav- 
eller is  never  far  from  lofty  mountains, 
at  some  seasons  of  the  year  snow-capped, 
at  other  times  cloud-capped,  but  always 
magnificently  impressive.  The  curious 
serrated  walls  and  battlements  of  the 
hills  in  the  vicinity  of  Sardis  and  Phila- 
delphia, worn  by  the  gnawing  tooth  of 
time  into  a  thousand  fantastic  shapes, 
are  worth  going  far  to  see. 

At  other  times  the  traveller  finds  him- 
self journeying  up  the  peaceful  valley  of 
the  serpentine  Meander,  or  crossing  by 
stepping-stones  the  waters  of  the  fabu- 
lously rich  Pactolus,  or  looking  down  from 
the  acropolis  of  Pergamos  upon  the  beau- 
tiful green  valley  of  the  Caicus.  He  will 
see  much  that  will  interest  him  in  the 
Turkish  villages  and  larger  towns,  in  the 
cosmopolitan  population  of  the  region, 
with  its  many  types  of  humanity  and  its 
vast  variety  of  costume.    If  he  is  not  too 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

squeamish  he  will  enjoy  the  nights  in  a 
Turkish  khan,  or  a  Greek  hotel,  or  the 
restaurant  where  no  one  has  the  fear  of 
microbes  before  his  eyes,  and  where  the 
edict  against  the  pestiferous  fly  has  not 
gone  forth. 

The  archaeologist  will  find  more  in 
this  ancient  province  of  Asia  to  interest 
him  than  in  any  similar  portion  of  the 
earth's  surface,  more  great  cities  of  an- 
tiquity awaiting  the  pick  and  shovel  of  the 
excavater,  more  ruins  of  magnificent  tem- 
ples, palaces,  gymnasiums,  and  theatres, 
than  he  can  find  elsewhere  in  the  same 
space  if  he  should  search  the  world  around. 

But  our  interest  in  these  chapters  lies 
chiefly  in  the  religious  significance  of  the 
Seven  Cities  of  Asia,  for  they  still  have  a 
meaning  and  a  message  for  every  city  in 
the  world  and  for  every  Christian  as  well. 

While  this  book  is  largely  a  record 
of  personal  experiences  and  conclusions, 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

the  best  authorities  have  been  consulted, 
and  the  author  desires  to  express  his 
especial  obligation  to  Sir  William  Ram- 
say, whose  researches  in  Asia  Minor  and 
whose  illuminating  books  have  made  the 
whole  religious  world  his  debtor. 

Much  of  the  material  in  these  chapters 
was  printed  serially  in  the  Christian 
Herald,  and  the  kindly  reception  it  re- 
ceived has  induced  the  author  to  put  it 
in  more  permanent  form. 

Boston,  June,  1914. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB  pAGH 

I.     The  Revelator  and  the  Revelation  3 

II.     Ephesus,    the    Church    of    Waning 

Enthusiasm 14 

III.  Smyrna,  the  City  of  the  Noble  Crown  33 

IV.  Pergamos,  the  City  of  Satan's  Seat  52 

V.     Thyatira,  the  City  of  the  Iron  Rod 

and  the  Morning  Star     ....  73 

VI.     Sardis,  the  Buried  City      ....  92 

VII.     Philadelphia,  the  City  of  the  Open 

Door 113 

VIII.     Laodicea  the  Lukewarm      ....  135 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


Grotto  of  St.  John,  Isle  of  Patmos,  in  which,  by- 
tradition,  he  saw  the  visions  in  Revelation. 
The  Monastery  of  St.  John  on  the  hill-top     .     .         6 

Ruins  of  the  Double  Church  of  Ephesus     ...  24 

Ruins  of  the  theatre,  Ephesus 26 

Ancient  Roman  aqueduct,  near  Smyrna      ...  34 

Two  famous  mosques  of  Smyrna 40 

Ruins  of  the  gateway  to  the  theatre  of  Pergamos. 
The  city  is  seen  through  the  archway  in  the 
distance 58 

Some  modern  Pergamonians 66 

Ruins  of  Roman  bath  of  Pergamos,  dating  from 
early  Christian  times.  Part  of  this  bath  is 
used  as  a  Greek  Orthodox  church  to-day     .     .       70 

Street  in  modern  Thyatira 74 

An  ancient  sarcophagus  of  Thyatira  converted 
into  a  fountain.  A  Turkish  bey  (or  feudal 
lord),  a  Greek  Protestant  pastor,  and  Dr. 
Clark.     The  bey  in  the  centre 84 

Sardis.     The  excavations  in  April,  1910      .     .     .      94 

xix 


xx  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


The  old  acropolis  of  Sardis,  part  of  which  fell  and 
buried  the  city  in  17  B.  C.  House  of  the  Amer- 
ican excavaters  at  the  right 104 

Sardis.     The  excavations  as  they  are  to-day     .     .     106 

Some  of  the  very  few  objects  as  yet  discovered  at 
Philadelphia — ancient  Greek  funeral  monu- 
ments      120 

Ancient  sarcophagus  at  Philadelphia  made  into  a 
fountain.  Two  eminent  missionaries,  Dr.  and 
Mrs.  Riggs,  standing  at  either  side      ....     122 

Ruins  of  the  fortress  of  Laodicea 144 


THE  HOLY  LAND  OF  ASIA  MINOR 


THE  HOLY  LAND  OF 
ASIA  MINOR 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  REVELATOR  AND  THE 
REVELATION 

How  magnificently  the  message  to  the 
seven  churches  is  prefaced:  "Grace  be 
unto  you  and  peace,"  says  the  revelator, 
"from  him  which  is  and  which  was  and 
which  is  to  come,  and  from  the  seven 
spirits  which  are  before  the  throne,  and 
from  Jesus  Christ  who  is  a  faithful  wit- 
ness, and  the  first-begotten  of  the  Head, 
and  the  prince  of  the  kings  of  the  earth." 
Was  ever  a  series  of  letters  begun  in  such 
an  exalted  strain!    "The  Alpha  and  the 


4  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

Omega,  the  Beginning  and  the  Ending, 
the  Lord  who  is  and  was  and  is  to  come, 
the  Almighty  One,"  told  the  revelator 
what  to  write  and  what  to  send  to 
Ephesus  and  Smyrna  and  Pergamos  and 
Thyatira  and  Sardis  and  Philadelphia 
and  Laodicea. 

A  pathetic  interest  is  added  to  the 
preface  to  these  letters  in  the  personal 
and  intimate  word  of  greeting  from  John, 
the  scribe  of  the  Spirit,  "your  brother  and 
companion  in  tribulation,"  as  he  calls 
himself,  "and  in  the  kingdom  and  pa- 
tience of  Christ."  He  had  need  of  pa- 
tience, indeed,  for  in  his  old  age  he  had 
come  to  a  period  of  the  severest  Ro- 
man persecutions,  probably  in  the  reign 
of  Domitian,  most  cruel  of  persecutors. 
His  punishment  took  place,  we  are  told, 
"at  a  time  when  the  penalty  for  Chris- 
tianity was  already  fixed  as  death  in  the 
severer  form,  that  is,  by  fire  or  cruci- 
fixion, or  as  a  public  spectacle  at  games 


THE  REVELATOR  5 

or  festivals  for  persons  of  humbler  pro- 
fession or  provincials,  and  simple  exe- 
cution for  Roman  citizens.  .  .  .  Banish- 
ment, combined  with  hard  labour  for  life, 
was  one  of  the  grave  penalties.  Many 
Christians  were  punished  in  that  way. 
It  was  a  penalty  for  humbler  criminals, 
provincials,  and  slaves.  It  was  in  its 
worst  forms  a  terrible  fate;  like  the 
death  penalty  it  was  preceded  by  scourg- 
ing, and  was  marked  by  perpetual  fetters, 
scanty  clothing,  insufficient  food,  sleep 
on  the  bare  ground  in  a  dark  prison,  and 
work  under  the  lash  of  military  over- 
seers. It  is  an  unavoidable  conclusion 
that  this  was  Saint  John's  punishment." 
As  we  think  of  this  fate,  which  would 
be  so  terrible  for  any  one  who  was  not 
"in  the  spirit"  and  who  could  not  see 
the  vision  of  the  new  heaven  and  the 
new  earth,  we  find  a  new  and  tear- 
compelling  pathos  in  the  words:  "Your 
companion    in    tribulation    and    in    the 


6  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

kingdom  and  patience  of  Jesus  Christ, 
who  was  in  the  isle  that  is  called  Pat- 
nios,  for  the  word  of  God  and  for  the 
testimony  of  Jesus  Christ." 

Patmos  is  one  of  the  group  of  islands 
called  the  Sporades.  It  is  now  called 
Patino,  and  lies  twenty-four  miles  dis- 
tant from  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  a 
little  south  of  Ephesus.  It  is  a  tiny 
little  islet  compared  with  some  of  its 
larger  neighbours,  and  has  an  area  of 
only  sixteen  square  miles  and  at  pres- 
ent a  population  of  four  thousand  souls. 
In  John's  time  there  were  still  fewer  in- 
habitants. Yet  before  the  days  of  re- 
corded time  the  island  was  inhabited, 
for  cyclopean  remains  are  found  there 
which  show  its  prehistoric  antiquity.  It 
is  said  that  in  the  Middle  Ages  it  was 
called  Palmosa  because  of  its  numerous 
palm-trees,  but  the  traveller  who  to-day 
sees  its  scorched  hillsides,  its  scanty, 
seared    vegetation,    and    its    forbidding 


THE  REVELATOR  7 

rocks  can  scarcely  believe  that  it  ever 
deserved  this  name. 

There  are  not  many  things  of  great  in- 
terest in  Patmos  except  as  the  memory 
and  the  spirit  of  Saint  John  suffuses 
every  landscape  with  his  gentle  spirit  of 
love.  There  is,  however,  the  Cave  of  the 
Apocalypse,  in  which,  tradition  tells  us, 
the  Apostle  saw  the  vision  which  he  has 
recorded  in  the  last  book  of  the  New 
Testament.  There  is  also  the  Monas- 
tery of  Saint  John,  founded  eight  hun- 
dred years  ago,  which  once  contained 
an  important  and  valuable  library  now 
found  in  the  Bodleian  Library  at  Oxford. 

But  it  is  not  what  Saint  John  saw  in 
Patmos  that  interests  us,  but  what  he 
saw  far  away  as  he  looked  out  from  his 
island  prison.  Looking  to  the  north  and 
east,  he  could  doubtless  see  the  great 
mountains  of  Asia  Minor,  among  which 
lay  the  seven  churches  to  which  the  letters 
were  written. 


8  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

The  scenery  and  situation  of  Patmos 
give  us  a  key  to  much  of  the  imagery 
of  the  book  of  Revelation.  Patmos  was 
one  of  the  islands  of  an  archipelago.  High 
and  rocky  headlands  could  be  seen  on 
every  side,  and  around  all,  shutting  him 
in  from  country  and  plain  and  fellow  dis- 
ciples, was  the  mysterious  sea,  the  real 
prison  wall,  mysterious  and  dangerous. 
As  we  think  of  this  situation  of  the  aged 
seer  we  can  more  fully  understand  his 
imagery  when  he  tells  us  that  "every 
mountain  and  island  shall  be  moved  out 
of  their  places";  "that  every  island  fled 
away  and  the  mountains  were  not  found." 
Everywhere  throughout  Revelation  we 
read  of  the  sea:  the  things  that  are  "in 
the  heaven  and  in  the  earth  and  in  the 
sea";  "the  mountains  which  shall  be 
cast  into  the  sea";  "the  angel  that  stood 
with  his  right  foot  upon  the  sea";  'the 
sound  of  many  waters,"  and  at  last, 
toward  the  end,  the  revelation  that  must 


THE  REVELATOR  9 

have  seemed  so  joyous  to  this  sea-im- 
prisoned saint,  the  revelation  of  the  time 
when  there  shall  be  "no  more  sea." 

In  writing  the  Apocalypse  Saint  John 
adopted  a  common  literary  style  of  Jew- 
ish writers  called  the  apocalyptic  style. 
It  was  not  exactly  prophecy,  though  al- 
lied to  prophecy,  and  the  letters  to  the 
Seven  Churches  were  not  epistles  intended 
to  be  read  to  the  churches,  but  to  be 
read  together  with  the  rest  of  the  book  of 
Revelation.  The  Seven  Churches  to  which 
they  were  addressed  stood  as  representa- 
tives of  seven  groups  of  churches,  and 
yet  all  the  Seven  Churches  were  not  of 
equal  importance.  Smyrna,  Ephesus, 
and  Pergamos  were  three  of  the  great 
cities  of  Saint  John's  time;  three  of  the 
mighty  capitals  of  the  world.  Phila- 
delphia and  Thyatira  were  humbler  cities, 
cities  of  the  second  class  we  should  call 
them.  Sardis  had  had  a  magnificent  his- 
tory and  perhaps  even  then  might  have 


10  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

been  numbered  with  the  three  foremost 
cities  already  mentioned,  though  it  had 
lost  much  of  the  ancient  glory  and  im- 
portance which  it  had  when  it  was  the 
capital  of  Crcesus  and  of  Cyrus  the  Great. 

Laodicea  lay  at  some  distance  from 
Ephesus,  its  nearest  neighbour  among  the 
seven,  and  though  by  no  means  equal  to 
the  great  four  was  an  important  centre 
of  trade  and  commerce,  not  far  from  two 
other  large  centres  with  which  the  Bible 
also  makes  us  familiar,  Hierapolis  and 
Colossae. 

The  Seven  Cities  were  evidently  cho- 
sen not  because  they  were  all  the  greatest 
and  most  important,  but  because  they 
were  representative  cities  and  each  was 
a  centre  of  other  churches.  It  is  sup- 
posed, too,  that  each  of  them  was  a  postal 
centre;  and,  though  the  government  had 
established  no  letter  route,  commercial 
houses  had  already  done  so,  and  the 
Christians  of  the  different  churches  in 


THE  REVELATOR  11 

the  vicinity  followed  their  example  and 
were  in  peculiarly  close  communication 
with  the  other  churches  in  their  particu- 
lar group. 

Each  church  had  its  own  individuality, 
but  each  was  also  a  representative  of 
other  churches,  and  it  may  be  said  that 
the  seven  epitomised  all  churches  in  all 
ages — churches  which  were  ardent  and 
faithful;  churches  that  had  lost  their 
early  enthusiasm;  churches  that  har- 
boured heresy  and  unbelief;  churches 
that  temporised  with  the  world;  churches 
that  did  not  rebuke  sin  in  its  grossest 
forms;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  churches 
that  maintained  the  faith,  kept  their 
early  zeal  aglow,  reprobated  the  wrong, 
stood  steadfast  unto  the  end,  and  which 
should  receive  at  last  the  crown  of  life. 
Such  were  the  Seven  Churches  of  Asia, 
and  such  are  the  seventy  times  seven 
thousand  churches  of  to-day.  In  this 
universal  quality  lies  the  special  interest 


n  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

of  the  Seven  Churches  of  Asia  to  us  of  the 
twentieth  century.  As  the  great  French 
preacher,  Bossuet,  said  when  contem- 
plating the  book  of  Revelation:  "All  the 
beauties  of  the  Scripture  are  concen- 
trated in  this  book;  all  that  is  most 
touching,  most  vivid,  most  majestic  in 
the  law  and  in  the  prophets,  receives 
here  a  new  splendour  and  passes  again 
before  our  eyes  that  we  may  be  filled 
with  the  consolations  and  the  graces  of 
all  past  ages." 

In  succeeding  chapters  we  will  visit 
each  of  the  Seven  Cities,  see  them  as  they 
look  to-day  in  their  ruins  or  inhabited 
with  their  twentieth-century  population; 
consider  their  present  characteristics  as 
we  try  to  recall  their  ancient  glories; 
look  upon  the  mountains  that  tower 
above  them,  the  streams  that  peacefully 
wend  their  way  through  them,  and  the 
unchanging  yet  ever-changing  clouds  and 
sky  that  bend  above  them;  thus  we  hum- 


THE  REVELATOR  13 

bly  hope  to  make  more  vivid  and  real  to 
our  readers  the  messages  to  the  Seven 
Churches  which  were  in  Asia. 


CHAPTER  II 

EPHESUS,  THE   CHURCH   OF 
WANING   ENTHUSIASM 

I  know  of  no  passage  in  the  Bible  which 
is  more  important  for  the  modern  church 
to  read  and  ponder  than  the  message 
to  the  ancient  church  in  Ephesus.  This 
church  had  many  good  points  and  is 
praised  for  its  good  works;  nor  is  it  con- 
demned unqualifiedly  in  any  respect  as 
are  some  of  the  Seven  Churches.  But  it 
had  lost  its  first  love.  The  fine  enthu- 
siasm of  its  earliest  days,  when  Paul  lived 
there  and  when  Timothy,  Aquila,  Pris- 
cilla,  Tychicus,  and  Apollos  helped  to 
mould  its  character,  had  evaporated. 

This    message    was    probably    written 
some  thirty  years  after  the  founding  of 

14 


EPHESUS  15 

the  church  by  Saint  Paul.  The  luxury, 
the  intellectual  atmosphere  of  which  the 
inhabitants  were  so  proud,  the  spirit  of 
criticism  and  unbelief,  the  natural  ac- 
companiment of  such  an  atmosphere,  the 
undue  emphasis  on  Christian  liberty,  had 
all  united  to  bring  about  a  degeneration 
in  the  sturdy  fibre  of  the  early  Christian- 
ity of  the  Ephesian  church. 

This  church  has  ten  thousand  proto- 
types to-day.  Churches  that  are  active 
and  zealous  in  philanthropies,  whose  be- 
nevolences are  unstinted,  whose  patient 
continuance  in  well-doing  is  to  be  com- 
mended, and  yet  they  have  lost  their 
enthusiasm,  their  joy  in  service,  their 
aggressive,  compelling  power  to  awaken 
sinners  and  turn  them  to  Christ. 

In  a  recent  article  describing  an  at- 
tempt to  evangelise  a  community  where 
various  social  means  were  used  to  inter- 
est the  people  and  where  a  Gospel  address 
concluded   the   effort,    the   writer   takes 


16  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

much  pains  to  declare  that  there  was  no 
emotion  and  to  repeat  that  "emotional 
excitement  was  entirely  absent."  I  im- 
agine the  same  thing  might  have  been 
said  of  the  church  of  Ephesus.  It  had 
left  its  "first  love";  it  had  lost  its  emo- 
tion, and,  consequently,  though  it  did 
good  work  and  laboured  with  patience, 
it  was  not  doing  its  "first  works'  with 
the  zeal  and  love  and  holy  joy  of  its 
earliest  days. 

The  site  of  a  church  which  has  so 
much  in  common  with  many  churches  of 
these  latter  days  is  of  peculiar  interest. 
To  visit  it  we  started  from  the  great  sea- 
port of  Smyrna,  where  was  situated  also, 
as  we  remember,  one  of  the  Seven  Churches 
of  Revelation.  The  journey  to  Ephesus 
is  by  no  means  a  long  or  arduous  one. 
Indeed,  so  short  and  easy  is  it  that  more 
tourists  by  far  visit  the  site  of  ancient 
Ephesus  each  year  than  all  the  other  six 
together. 


EPHESUS  17 

We  take  the  train  at  the  substantial 
Caravan  Bridge  station,  in  the  heart  of 
Smyrna.  A  score  or  more  of  two-horse 
public  carriages  are  hurrying  passengers, 
each  with  a  great  pile  of  miscellaneous 
baggage,  to  the  station.  Ragged  camels, 
loaded  with  huge  panniers  on  either  side, 
dispute  the  way  with  the  modern  landaus. 
On  the  railway  platform  boys  are  selling 
the  morning  papers.  Others  tempt  the 
passengers  with  large  rings  of  bread 
hung  upon  a  long  pole,  while  others  offer 
for  sale  rahatlakoum,  or  Turkish  delight, 
or  perhaps  refresh  the  thirsty  traveller 
with  booza,  a  concoction  far  more  harm- 
less than  its  name  sounds,  or  with  silep, 
a  drink  made  from  orchid  roots  with  a 
sprinkling  of  cinnamon  and  ginger  on 
top. 

Soon  the  train  pulls  into  the  station 
from  Smyrna  Point,  and  we  take  our  seats 
in  a  comfortable  car  built  mainly  after 
the  American  style,  though  the  train  also 


18  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

contains  some  small  compartments  for 
travellers  who  do  not  like  to  mingle  with 
hoi  polloi. 

Our  train  may  be  said  to  start  in  a 
cemetery,  for  the  Caravan  Bridge  station 
is  barely  outside  of  a  great  cypress  grove 
which  contains  two  large  Turkish  ceme- 
teries with  their  leaning  and  dilapidated 
and  altogether  disreputable  headstones. 
A  minute  or  two  after  pulling  out  of  the 
station  we  pass  the  burial-ground  of  the 
Jews,  and  another  of  the  Christians,  with 
beautiful  monuments  of  white  marble. 

Every  rod  of  the  way  has  its  peculiar 
interest  to  the  traveller.  Under  frown- 
ing Mount  Pagus,  crowned  with  the 
ruins  of  the  ancient  citadel,  the  rail- 
way passes  and  ascends  a  lovely  valley, 
through  which  chatters  a  beautiful  brook. 
A  magnificent  aqueduct,  built  only  two 
centuries  ago,  spans  the  valley,  and 
higher  up  is  a  far  older  aqueduct  which 
takes  us  back,  perhaps,  to  Roman  times. 


EPHESUS  19 

At  the  first  stop,  four  miles  out  of  the 
city,  the  guard  cries  out:  "Paradise! 
Paradise!"  We  are  not  looking  for  para- 
dise in  Turkey,  but  if  any  place  in  the 
Sultan's  domains  deserves  the  name  it  is 
doubtless  this  little  station,  for  here  are 
the  fine  buildings  of  the  International 
College  of  Smyrna,  an  American  Chris- 
tian college  manned  by  American  teach- 
ers and  built  by  liberal  donations  of 
American  money.  Here  are  gathered 
hundreds  of  students  of  different  races 
and  languages,  to  be  trained  not  only  in 
the  lore  of  the  schools  but  in  the  higher 
knowledge  which  is  "the  beginning  of 
wisdom." 

Every  few  miles  we  stop  at  some  little 
Turkish  town,  but  few  of  them  have  any 
special  interest  for  the  modern  travel- 
ler, though  each  of  them  has  a  history 
that  runs  back  thousands  of  years,  and 
through  each  of  them  has  probably  passed 
victorious  or  defeated  armies,  marching 


20  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

proudly  in  their  triumph  or  straggling 
dejectedly  in  their  defeat. 

Everywhere  are  hills;  the  narrow  val- 
ley through  which  we  pass  is  by  them 
guarded  closely  on  every  side.  Every- 
where, too — at  least  when  we  made  the 
journey,  in  the  early  spring — are  beauti- 
ful flowers.  Gorgeous  anemones,  scarlet 
and  purple  and  white,  some  of  the  blos- 
soms as  large  as  a  silver  dollar,  make  the 
banks  of  the  railway  gay. 

After  two  and  a  half  hours,  some  forty- 
eight  miles  from  Smyrna,  "Ayasolouk" 
is  called  by  the  guard  with  stentorian 
voice,  and  we  find  that  we  have  come 
to  the  railway  station  of  the  Church  of 
Waning  Enthusiasms  that  Saint  John  and 
Saint  Paul  knew.  Ayasolouk,  which 
means  "Holy  Theologian"  (referring  to 
Saint  John),  is  itself  full  of  interesting 
ruins.  Before  we  step  off  the  railway 
train  the  great  Roman  aqueduct  looms 
upon    the    landscape,    an    aqueduct    so 


EPHESUS  21 

enormous  that  it  can  be  seen  when  many 
miles  away.  In  the  wretched  little  vil- 
lage of  Ayasolouk,  which  now  boasts  only 
a  few  hundred  inhabitants,  the  pillars  of 
this  aqueduct,  forty-five  feet  tall,  stand 
high  above  the  huts  like  enormous  monu- 
ments, on  the  tops  of  which  the  storks 
have  built  their  nests  and  at  the  base  of 
which  they  stalk  about  majestically,  sure 
that  their  sacred  character  will  protect 
them  from  harm. 

Just  beyond  the  columns  of  the  mighty 
aqueduct  we  come  to  an  ancient  gate 
which  leads  to  the  ruins  of  the  Church  of 
Saint  John,  whose  enormous  size  shows 
how  huge  was  the  basilica  dedicated  to 
the  writer  of  Revelation,  while  not  far 
away  are  the  well-preserved  ruins  of  a 
great  Turkish  mosque. 

But  the  most  interesting  spot  in  Ayaso- 
louk is  that  which  once  contained  one  of 
the  seven  wonders  of  the  world,  none 
other  than  the  temple  of  "the  great  god- 


22  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

dess  Diana,  whom  all  Asia  and  the  in- 
habited earth  worshippeth,"  as  Deme- 
trius, the  silversmith,  proclaimed.  This 
is  the  temple  concerning  whose  goddess 
the  mob  that  would  have  killed  Saint 
Paul  cried  out  for  the  space  of  two  hours 
in  the  theatre:  "Great  is  Diana  of  the 
Ephesians."  Or,  more  likely,  it  was  an 
invocation  to  the  goddess  which  they 
repeated  vociferously  for  two  hours: 
"Great  Diana  of  the  Ephesians!' 

It  is  hard  to  realise  as  one  looks  at  the 
few  marbles  that  are  left  on  the  swampy 
site  near  Ayasolouk,  stones  often  covered 
with  water,  that  this  could  have  been  the 
site  of  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world,  a 
temple  that  rivalled  in  magnificence,  if  it 
did  not  excel,  the  Taj  Mahal  of  Agra, 
the  most  perfect  example  of  ecclesiastical 
architecture  that  the  world  knows  to-day. 

We  must  hurry  on  to  the  ruins  of  the 
Roman  city  of  Ephesus,  some  two  miles 
beyond  Ayasolouk.    Here  one  who  longs 


EPHESUS  23 

to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  saints 
feels  that  he  is  indeed  on  holy  ground. 
Much  of  the  ancient  city  has  been  ex- 
cavated. On  these  marble  pavements, 
doubtless,  Paul  and  Apollos  walked,  per- 
haps arm  in  arm,  as  they  talked  over  the 
affairs  of  the  infant  church  and  the  prog- 
ress of  the  kingdom  of  the  Master  whom 
they  loved.  Over  these  pavements,  too, 
doubtless,  John  walked  in  rapt  contem- 
plation of  the  things  which  afterward  he 
might  reveal.  According  to  the  ancient 
legend,  which,  unlike  many  legends,  has 
marks  of  verisimilitude,  in  his  extreme 
old  age  the  saint  was  carried  through 
the  streets  of  the  city  day  by  day,  saying 
to  his  disciples:  "Little  children,  love  one 
another!" 

The  poet  Eastwood  has  beautifully 
told  this  story  in  his  lines  about  Saint 
John  the  Aged: 

"What  say  you,  friends? 
That  this  is  Ephesus  and  Christ  has  gone 


24  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

Back  to  His  kingdom?     Ay,  'tis  so,  'tis  so: 
I  know  it  all:   and  yet,  just  now,  I  seemed 
To  stand  once  more  upon  my  native  hills, 
And  touch  my  master.  .  .  . 
Up!    Bear  me  to  my  church  once  more, 
There  let  me  tell  them  of  a  Saviour's  love: 
For  by  the  sweetness  of  my  Master's  voice 
I  think  He  must  be  very  near. 

"So,  raise  up  my  head: 
How  dark  it  is!   I  cannot  seem  to  see 
The  faces  of  my  flock.     Is  that  the  sea 
That  murmurs  so,  or  is  it  weeping?    Hush! 
'My  little  children!    God  so  loved  the  world 
He  gave  His  Son:  so  love  ye  one  another, 
Love  God  and  men.     Amen.'  " 

In  one  of  these  side  streets  which  lead 
out  of  the  main  marble  thoroughfare 
very  likely  Priscilla  and  Aquila  wrought 
at  their  trade,  perhaps  with  Paul's  help, 
during  the  long  winter  evenings. 

There  are  so  many  spots  of  supreme 
historical  and  Biblical  interest  about 
Ephesus  that  a  volume  might  be  written, 
as  many  volumes  have  been  written  in 
the    past,   about   this    most   fascinating 


Ruins  of  the  Double  Church  of  Ephesus. 


EPHESUS  25 

city.  Here  is  the  great "  Double  Church," 
so  called,  where  one  of  the  important 
councils  of  the  church  was  held.  Here 
are  ruins  of  tombs,  one  of  which  is 
called  the  tomb  of  Saint  Luke,  and  the 
temples  of  many  gods,  the  ruins  of  the 
agora,  or  market-place,  of  the  great  gym- 
nasium, of  the  stadium  where  the  Gre- 
cian youths  exercised  themselves,  more  in 
physical  than  intellectual  life,  somewhat 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  youth  of 
our  own  day. 

But  perhaps  the  most  interesting  of 
these  perfect  ruins  is  that  of  the  great 
theatre,  capable  of  seating  24,500  people. 
As  in  all  these  old  theatres,  the  seats 
followed  the  semicircular  excavation  in 
the  hillside.  The  marble  slabs  on  which 
the  people  of  Ephesus  sat  as  they  wit- 
nessed the  games  have  been  taken  away, 
though  it  is  not  difficult  to  mark  their 
former  position.  In  the  proscenium  are 
heaped    together    in    endless    confusion 


26  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

capitals  and  friezes  and  drums  of  columns 
and  architraves.  Here  it  was  that  the 
mob  shouted  their  praise  of  Diana  for 
two  long  hours.  Here  it  was  that  at  last 
the  town  clerk  of  Ephesus  quieted  the 
people  by  telling  them  that  every  one 
knew  that  Ephesus  was  the  temple-keeper 
of  the  great  goddess  Diana  and  of  the 
image  that  fell  down  from  Jupiter,  and 
thus,  by  his  shrewd  opportunism  and  ap- 
peal to  their  religious  pride,  he  quieted 
the  people,  assuring  them  that  Paul  and 
his  companions  were  neither  robbers  of 
temples  nor  yet  blasphemers  of  the  god- 
dess, and  that  Demetrius,  if  he  had  any- 
thing against  them,  could  prosecute  them 
in  the  courts. 

As  we  stand  in  the  theatre  to-day  we 
can  hear  in  imagination  the  hoarse  shouts 
of  the  angry  mob  as  they  monotonously 
invoked  the  goddess.  We  can  hear  the 
politic  words  of  the  town  clerk  and  see 
Alexander  the  Jew  vainly  trying  to  gain 


m 

<u 

O. 
W 

n 

CD 

-4-> 

<v 


CO 

C! 

•  — 


EPHESUS  27 

a  hearing  from  the  people  who  would  not 
listen  to  a  despised  Israelite. 

But  the  message  in  Revelation  comes 
to  a  church  that  has  escaped  its  early 
dangers,  and  that,  likewise,  as  is  often 
the  case,  has  lost  its  early  enthusiasm. 
In  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  there 
is  no  indication  that  he  noticed  any  spir- 
itual declension.  His  words  are  words 
of  confidence  and  approbation,  quite  dif- 
ferent from  his  letter  to  the  Galatians 
and  the  Colossians. 

But  a  generation  had  passed  when 
Saint  John  wrote  the  book  of  Revelation, 
and  though  their  works  and  the  labour 
and  the  patience  of  the  Ephesian  church 
and  its  reprobation  of  evil  are  still  known, 
yet  the  Master  has  somewhat  against 
it.  It  had  lost  its  first  love.  "No  evil 
is  more  marked  among  the  Christian 
churches  of  this  day,"  said  Horace  Bush- 
nell,  "than  precisely  the  absence  of  this 
spirit  of  burning  which  the  Ephesians 


28  THE   SEVEN   CHURCHES 

lacked.  There  is  plenty  of  liberality  and 
effort,  there  is  much  interest  in  religious 
questions,  there  is  genial  tolerance  and 
wide  culture,  there  is  a  high  standard  of 
morality  and,  on  the  whole,  a  tolerable 
adherence  to  it,  but  there  is  little  love 
and  little  fervour.  Where  is  that  Spirit 
which  was  poured  out  on  Pentecost? 
Where  are  the  cloven  tongues  of  fire? 
Where  the  flames  that  Christ  died  to 
light  up?" 

For  this  lack  of  its  earlier  and  more 
fervent  zeal  the  Ephesian  church  is 
warned  to  remember  whence  it  has  fallen 
and  to  repent  and  do  the  first  works, 
or  else  the  Master  will  come  quickly  and 
remove  the  candlestick  out  of  its  place. 
This  threatened  penalty  has  been  under- 
stood to  mean  not  an  utter  destruction 
of  the  church  of  Ephesus  but  as  indicat- 
ing that  the  church  would  be  removed  to 
another  spot.  Grotius  interprets  it:  "I 
will  cause  thy  population  to  flee  away  to 
another  place." 


EPHESUS  29 

Sir  William  Ramsay  characterises  Eph- 
esus  as  the  "city  of  change."  And 
truly  it  has  seen  marvellous  changes  and 
its  inhabitants  many  removals.  In  the 
days  of  Saint  Paul  and  Saint  John 
Ephesus  was  a  city  of  the  seacoast;  the 
waters  of  the  iEgean  lapped  its  busy 
wharves;  now  the  traveller  in  Ephesus 
cannot  imagine  that  he  is  near  the  sea. 
To  all  appearances  he  is  as  far  away  as 
on  one  of  our  inland  prairies.  The 
Cayster  during  all  these  ages  has  brought 
down  mud  and  silt  from  the  mountains 
until  now  Ephesus  is  miles  from  the  sea- 
shore. Even  in  Saint  John's  time  the 
port  was  kept  open  only  by  strenuous 
effort  and  constant  dredging. 

These  changes  wrought  by  nature  have 
compelled  frequent  changes  on  the  part 
of  the  inhabitants.  "The  original  city 
was  built  not  far  from  Ayasolouk,  and 
the  whole  Ephesian  valley  was  an  arm 
of  the  sea  dotted  with  rocky  islands  and 
bordered  by  picturesque  mountains  and 


30  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

wooded  promontories,"  we  are  told.  As 
the  sea  receded  in  the  course  of  the  cen- 
turies the  population  moved  with  it, 
until  the  Roman  city,  the  city  of  Saint 
Paul  and  Saint  John,  was  some  miles 
from  the  original  site.  At  last  this  port 
became  impossible,  and  the  inhabitants 
moved  farther  back,  nearer  to  the  site 
of  the  more  ancient  city,  where  to-day 
the  few  inhabitants  that  still  remain  are 
found. 

In  its  government  as  well  as  its  situ- 
ation Ephesus  has  been  a  city  of  change. 
Among  the  earliest  inhabitants  the  Phoe- 
nicians introduced  their  religion,  and 
the  people  worshipped  the  symbol  of 
the  moon  as  the  goddess  of  the  sea;  the 
priests  were  named  "king  bees"  and  the 
priestesses  "bees,"  and  bands  of  armed 
women  as  well  as  men — for  suffragettes 
then  had  all  their  rights — formed  the 
temple  guard. 

Then    came   the   Ionians,   a  thousand 


EPHESUS  31 

years  before  Christ,  who  had  to  fight 
with  the  armed  virgins,  afterward  known 
as  Amazons.  Following  them  came  the 
Greeks  as  conquerors,  who  in  turn  were 
conquered  by  Croesus,  and  he  by  Cyrus 
the  Great  and  later  by  Xerxes.  Then 
came  Alexander  the  Great  as  the  ruler 
of  the  world,  who  made  Ephesus  one  of 
its  chief  capitals.  Octavius  Caesar  with 
Mark  Antony,  after  the  battle  of  Phi- 
lippi,  were  the  rulers  of  the  city.  Under 
all  these  monarchs  it  maintained  its 
pre-eminence,  and  the  great  temple  of 
Diana  was  its  chief  glory.  The  Ephesians 
were  even  proud  of  the  title  of  Neocori, 
or  "Temple-Sweepers  "  of  the  great  Diana. 
In  Christian  times  it  was  important 
ecclesiastically  and  politically,  and  in  the 
Middle  Ages  the  Church  of  Saint  John 
at  Ayasolouk  was  almost  as  famous  as 
the  old  temple  of  Diana.  Its  annual  rev- 
enues amounted  to  nearly  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars.     Then  came  the  Turks 


32  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

in  the  twelfth  century,  and  there  they 
have  been  ever  since.  Truly  it  has  been 
a  city  of  change  in  every  sense  of  the  word. 
The  Lord's  prophecy  has  been  fulfilled, 
and  the  "lamp  of  the  church,"  as  the 
"candlestick"  should  be  translated,  with 
its  light  and  glory,  has  been  removed  out 
of  its  place. 

For  a  time  the  warning  of  Saint  John 
seemed  to  have  had  a  good  effect.  The 
church  was  revived  and  regained  its 
first  love,  according  to  Ignatius,  but  in 
later  centuries  it  again  lost  its  enthusiasm 
and  its  devotion;  and  at  last  the  Moham- 
medan crescent  supplanted  the  Christian 
cross.  The  church  was,  indeed,  removed 
out  of  its  place  and  that  forever.  Every 
memorial  that  there  was  once  a  church 
there  has  departed,  and  not  one  Christian 
family  now  lives  in  the  desolation,  the 
dry  land,  and  the  wilderness  that  Ephe- 
sus  has  become. 


CHAPTER  III 

SMYRNA,   THE   CITY   OF   THE 
NOBLE   CROWN 

It  is  an  interesting  fact,  and  perhaps 
not  altogether  without  genuine  spiritual 
significance,  that  Smyrna,  the  only  city 
of  the  seven  except  Philadelphia  whose 
church  receives  from  the  Master  un- 
qualified praise,  is  also  the  only  city  of 
the  seven  which  is  to-day  great  and 
prosperous.  Next  to  Constantinople,  it 
is  the  largest  and  most  important  city 
of  the  Turkish  Empire.  Its  situation, 
too,  is  almost  as  fine  as  the  peerless  site 
of  the  city  on  the  Bosphorus. 

Seated  majestically  on  rising  ground 
on  the  southeast  shore  of  the  Gulf  of 
Smyrna,  it  seems  as  one  looks  from  its 
wharves  as  though  built  on  the  banks 

33 


34  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

of  a  great  inland  lake.  A  large  island 
blocks  the  view  as  one  gazes  out  to  the 
iEgean,  and  yet  the  entrance  is  so  deep 
and  safe,  and  the  harbour  itself  so  spa- 
cious, that,  according  to  the  hackneyed 
saying,  the  navies  of  the  world  can  ride 
at  the  water-front  of  Smyrna. 

To  be  sure,  the  city  has  no  mighty 
Olympus  to  keep  guard  over  it  as  has 
Salonica;  it  has  no  narrow  thoroughfare 
through  which  constantly  ply  the  vessels 
of  many  nations  as  has  Constantinople; 
but  it  has  glories  all  its  own.  Splendid 
mountains  surround  it  on  almost  every 
side.  Mount  Pagus,  the  old  citadel  of 
Smyrna,  up  whose  steep  side  many  of 
the  houses  of  modern  Smyrna  are  climb- 
ing, is  like  a  great  fist,  as  some  one  has 
expressed  it,  thrust  out  by  the  hills  be- 
hind the  city  and  connected  with  the 
mountain  ranges  to  the  south — a  fist 
which  in  the  early  days,  when  crowned 
with  a  mighty  fortress  and  manned  by 


SMYRNA  35 

tens  of  thousands  of  soldiers,  seemed  to 
be  shaken  threateningly  in  the  face  of 
every  invader. 

I  have  approached  Smyrna  both  from 
the  sea  and  from  the  land,  and  whether 
one  journeys  across  the  iEgean  from 
Athens,  after  an  eighteen  hours'  voyage, 
or  comes  overland  from  Constantinople 
by  rail,  a  long  two  days'  journey,  he  is 
impressed  not  only  with  the  picturesque- 
ness  of  the  situation  but  also  by  the 
seeming  vigour  and  vitality  of  the  city. 
Though  Smyrna  claims  to  be  at  least 
three  thousand  five  hundred  years  old, 
and  her  recorded  history  goes  back  for 
nearly  three  thousand  years,  she  is  as 
alert,  enterprising,  and  busy  as  though 
she  had  her  birth  in  the  last  century,  on 
one  of  our  own  great  lakes,  instead  of 
on  the  shore  of  the  oldest  sea  of  the  civi- 
lised world. 

Let  us  in  imagination  go  ashore  from 
one  of  the  great  black  steamers  of  the 


36  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

Messageries  Maritime.  We  land  on  a 
noisy,  bustling  quay  alongside  of  which 
runs  a  little  horse-railway.  Great  ships 
from  most  of  the  leading  ports  of  the 
world  are  tied  up  to  the  quay  by  their 
stern.  On  the  other  side  of  this  broad 
street,  the  only  one  in  Smyrna  to  which 
this  adjective  can  be  applied,  are  large 
warehouses  and  one  or  two  pretentious 
hotels. 

Passing  through  a  cross  street,  we  come 
to  the  great  business  artery  of  Smyrna, 
the  so-called  "Frank  Street,"  which  has 
doubtless  obtained  its  name  from  the 
fact  that  so  many  Franks,  a  generic  name 
for  foreigners,  do  business  on  it.  This 
street  is  only  fifteen  feet  wide,  and  yet  it 
is  the  chief  business  thoroughfare  of  a 
city  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  inhabitants. 
Two  people  stretching  out  their  arms  and 
touching  hands  in  the  middle  could  span 
the  street,  and  yet  through  it  hurries  a 
constant  stream  of  foot-passengers,  dash- 


SMYRNA  37 

ing  cabs,  stately  camels,  donkeys  and 
donkey-boys,  beasts  of  burden  and  men 
of  burden,  carrying  every  conceivable 
article  that  people  of  the  Orient  or  the 
Occident  might  want;  for  this  is  one  of 
the  chief  cities  where  East  and  West  meet 
on  a  common  footing. 

At  its  upper  end  Frank  Street  de- 
bouches into  one  of  the  ever-fascinating 
Oriental  bazaars.  A  celebrated  English 
author  speaks  of  these  bazaars  as  "  a  net- 
work of  narrow,  ill-paved,  dirty  lanes" 
forming  the  great  business  centre  of 
Smyrna.  Everything  is  sold  in  these 
dismal  quarters,  he  says,  "and  they 
doubtless  give  a  faithful  picture,  in  the 
unchanging  East,  of  the  Smyrna  of  the 
days  of  the  Apostles." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  these  bazaars 
are  narrow,  ill  paved,  and  dirty,  but  they 
cannot  be  said  to  be  dismal,  for  there  is 
no  mart  of  trade  in  all  the  world  that  has 
more  kaleidoscopic  changes,  more  bril- 


38  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

liant  colours,  or,  to  the  stranger,  more 
interesting  people  than  the  bazaars  of 
Smyrna.  Here  every  trade  is  being  car- 
ried on  under  your  very  eye;  all  the 
goods,  so  to  speak,  are  in  the  shop-win- 
dows. Not  that  there  are  any  shop- 
windows  or  windows  of  any  other  kind 
in  these  bazaars,  which  are  lighted  from 
the  open  ends  and  from  apertures  in  the 
roof,  but  every  merchant  has  brought 
all  his  goods  to  the  front,  and  usually 
sits  cross-legged  behind  them,  waiting 
for  a  customer,  while  he  sips  his  thick 
coffee  and  reads  the  paper  or  the  Koran. 
Some  of  the  bazaar  merchants  of 
Smyrna,  however,  are  more  enterprising 
than  their  brethren  in  other  cities,  and 
send  out  touts  and  barkers  to  induce  you 
to  patronise  their  shops,  especially  those 
who,  to  tempt  the  unsophisticated  for- 
eigner, deal  in  curios,  ancient  armour, 
antiquated  daggers  and  weapons,  all  of 
which  very  likely  were  made  day  before 


SMYRNA  39 

yesterday.  It  is  hard  to  shake  off  these 
persistent  salesmen,  who  plead  with  you 
a  thousand  times  over  to  "Come,  visit 
my  shop?  Very  fine  antikkers.  You  no 
need  buy  anything;  you  just  look!"  If, 
however,  one  is  beguiled  to  go  and  look, 
he  will  find  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  get 
away  from  the  wily,  persistent  merchant 
without  buying  some  trinkets  for  which 
he  will  afterward  find  but  little  use. 

Jewellers  and  money-changers,  rug- 
dealers  and  saddlers,  spice-merchants 
and  sellers  of  figs  and  dates  and  oranges 
and  grains,  shoe-stores  and  fez-shops, 
hardware  and  dry-goods  and  guns,  are 
all  mixed  up  in  endless  confusion,  or  at 
least  appear  so  to  the  newcomer.  At  one 
end  of  the  bazaar  we  hear  a  tremendous 
din,  as  though  we  were  approaching  a 
dozen  boiler-shops,  but  we  find  that  we 
are  only  drawing  near  to  the  copper 
bazaar,  where  the  workmen  are  labori- 
ously pounding   out   bowls  and  platters 


40  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

and  water-pots  and  saucepans  and  dishes 
of  all  shapes  and  sizes.  Through  these 
bazaars  drivers  with  two-horse  phaetons 
are  constantly  charging,  and  the  un- 
lucky foot-passenger  must  flatten  himself 
against  the  wall  to  avoid  being  crushed 
either  by  a  carriage  or  a  loaded  camel. 
All  sorts  of  vehicles  and  four-footed 
creatures  as  well  as  human  bipeds  are 
straggling  or  rushing  through  the  shops 
instead  of  through  the  streets  where  they 
would  seem  to  belong. 

Not  far  from  the  bazaars  is  Fish-market 
Street,  another  interesting  though  some- 
what unsavoury  and  ill-smelling  thorough- 
fare. Here  fine  mackerel,  sole,  and  cod 
have  to  compete  for  popularity  with  the 
humble  squid,  the  hideous  devil-fish,  the 
octopus,  and  the  inky  cuttlefish.  The 
streets  are  all  narrow  and  tortuous,  and 
there  are  fewer  fine  buildings,  mosques, 
and  churches  than  either  in  Salonica  or 
Constantinople. 


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SMYRNA  41 

Architecturally  Smyrna  must  have  de- 
generated since  the  ancient  days,  for  we 
are  told  that  then  the  streets  were  broad 
and  handsome,  well  paved  and  running 
at  right  angles  with  each  other.  There 
were  then  a  number  of  squares  and  por- 
ticoes and  public  libraries,  a  museum,  a 
stadium  in  which  Olympic  games  were 
celebrated  with  great  enthusiasm,  a  grand 
music-hall  or  Odeion,  a  Homerion,  and 
many  temples,  of  which  the  most  famous 
was  that  of  the  Olympian  Jupiter,  in 
which  the  reigning  emperor  was  prac- 
tically the  god  worshipped. 

The  ancient  Smyrniotes  were  inordi- 
nately proud  of  their  city;  they  called  it 
the  "First  of  Asia,"  though  the  Ephesians 
violently  disputed  this  claim.  The  in- 
habitants also  called  their  city  the  "City 
of  Homer,"  who  they  claimed  had  been 
born  and  brought  up  beside  their  sacred 
river  Meles.  They  put  his  image  upon 
their  coins,  which  they  called  a  Home- 


42  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

rion,  a  name  also  given  to  one  of  their 
temples. 

A  paragraph  from  Apollonius  of  Tyana 
is  worth  quoting,  not  only  for  the  beauti- 
ful sentiment  it  contains,  but  because  it 
shows  the  esteem  in  which  ancient  Smyrna 
was  held  by  famous  writers  of  the  day. 
"Though  it  is  the  most  beautiful  of  all 
cities  under  the  sun,"  he  writes,  "and 
makes  the  sea  its  own,  and  holds  the 
fountains  of  Zephyrus,  yet  it  is  a  greater 
charm  to  wear  a  crown  of  men  than  a 
crown  of  porticoes,  and  pictures  and  gold 
beyond  the  standard  of  mankind,  for 
buildings  are  seen  only  in  their  own  place, 
but  men  are  seen  everywhere  and  spoken 
about  everywhere,  and  make  their  cities 
as  vast  as  the  range  of  countries  which 
they  can  visit." 

This  allusion  of  the  ancient  writer  to 
the  crown  of  porticoes  suggests  the  most 
imposing  characteristic  of  ancient  Smyrna, 
a  characteristic  to  which  the  writer   of 


SMYRNA  43 

Revelation  evidently  alludes,  and  that 
was  the  crown  of  noble  towers  and  for- 
tresses and  other  buildings  that  sur- 
mounted Mount  Pagus,  the  mighty  acrop- 
olis of  Smyrna.  "iElius  Aristides,  who 
himself  lived  in  Smyrna,"  says  Sir  Wil- 
liam Ramsay,  "compares  the  city  as  the 
ideal  city  on  earth  to  the  crown  of 
Ariadne  shining  in  the  heavenly  constel- 
lation. He  can  hardly  find  language 
strong  enough  to  paint  the  beauty  of  the 
crown  of  Smyrna.  Several  of  his  highly 
ornate  sentences  become  clearer  when  we 
note  that  he  is  expressing  in  a  series  of 
variations  the  idea  of  a  crown  resting  on 
the  summit  of  the  hill." 

Mount  Pagus  is  still  there,  but  its 
crown  has  largely  disappeared.  Enor- 
mous fragments  still  remain,  to  be  sure, 
showing  what  tremendous  buildings  once 
occupied  the  broad  plateau  on  the  sum- 
mit of  the  acropolis,  and,  as  one  rebuilds 
in  imagination  these  wonderful  piles,  he 


44  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

can  easily  forgive  the  Smyrniotes  of  old 
for  their  grandiloquent  praise  of  their 
lovely  city  and  its  beautiful  crown. 

On  the  side  of  this  crowned  hill  is  the 
most  interesting  spot  for  the  Christian 
pilgrim  to-day,  the  tomb  of  the  martyr 
Polycarp,  who,  in  the  middle  of  the 
second  century,  was  here  burned  at  the 
stake.  He  was  the  Bishop  of  Smyrna 
and  disciple  of  Saint  John  himself.  Ire- 
nseus,  who  was  Bish  p  of  Lyons  at  the 
close  of  the  second  century,  was  the 
pupil  of  Polycarp  and  writes  about  him 
most  lovingly  and  touchingly.  Thus  we 
have  unbroken  links  in  a  chain  of  testi- 
mony extending  through  two  centuries 
which  take  us  back  to  Christ  himself: 
Irenaeus  the  disciple  of  Polycarp,  Poly- 
carp the  disciple  of  Saint  John,  Saint 
John  the  disciple  of  Christ.  Who  does 
not  cherish  the  beautiful  saying  of  the 
aged  bishop,  when  on  the  stadium  of 
Smyrna  at  two  o'clock  of  a  Saturday 


SMYRNA  45 

afternoon  in  the  year  156,  as  the  flames 
mounted  around  him  and  he  was  asked 
to  save  his  life  by  renouncing  Christ,  he 
cried  out:  "Eighty  and  six  years  have  I 
served  Him,  and  He  has  done  me  no  ill; 
how  then  can  I  blaspheme  my  King  who 
hath  saved  me." 

The  traditional  spot  of  his  martyrdom 
is  now  guarded  by  a  great  cypress-tree, 
and  under  this  is  a  green-painted  Mo- 
hammedan tomb  with  a  marble  fez,  the 
Moslem  embellishment  of  a  grave,  on  the 
top,  and  this  is  said  to  be  Polycarp's 
tomb!  It  seems  strange  and  sad  that 
even  his  traditional  resting-place  should 
be  in  a  Turkish  cemetery  and  in  a  Turk- 
ish tomb,  for  he  belongs  pre-eminently 
to  the  Christian  church,  though  the 
Moslems  also  regard  him  as  a  famous 
saint.  "Polycarpa  Tomba!  Polycarpa 
Tomba!"  cried  a  little  black  girl  as  we 
approached  the  tomb.  These  were  her 
two    English    words,    though    she    was 


46  THE   SEVEN  CHURCHES 

abundantly  familiar  with  the  word  "back- 
shish," and  followed  us  half  a  mile  from 
the  tomb,  begging  for  a  few  more  paras. 

Some  forty  years  before  he  died,  Poly- 
carp  wrote  an  epistle  to  the  Philippians, 
in  which  he  quotes  profusely  from  the 
apostolic  writings,  showing  that  they 
were  well  known  in  the  Christian  church 
only  a  few  years  after  the  death  of  Saint 
John. 

Ephesus  was  called  "the  passageway 
of  the  martyrs,''  because  through  Ephesus 
most  of  them  passed  on  their  way  to  die 
at  Rome.  But  Smyrna,  also,  was  a  high- 
way of  the  martyrs,  and  through  this 
city  the  great  Ignatius,  Bishop  of  An- 
tioch,  passed  to  his  glorious  death  at 
Rome.  Here  he  was  met  and  comforted 
by  the  Christians  of  Smyrna,  and  in  writ- 
ing back  to  Poly  carp  he  says:  "I  give 
exceeding  glory  that  it  hath  been  vouch- 
safed me  to  see  thy  blameless  face." 

We  have  been  describing  modern  Smyr- 


SMYRNA  47 

na  and  old  Smyrna,  but  there  was  an 
older  Smyrna  still,  for  the  most  ancient 
city  was  said  to  have  been  founded  by 
Tantalus  some  three  thousand  five  hun- 
dred years  before  Christ  at  the  extreme 
end  of  the  bay,  some  three  or  four  miles 
from  the  modern  city,  which  was  also  the 
site  of  the  city  of  Polycarp  and  Saint 
John.  As  I  climbed  the  rough  and  rugged 
hill,  leaping  from  boulder  to  boulder, 
dodging  the  prickly  shrubs  where  the 
hardy  goats  alone  can  find  any  suste- 
nance, I  felt  that  indeed  I  was  getting 
back  to  ancient  days,  as  I  gazed  at  the 
so-called  tomb  of  Tantalus  and  the  cy- 
clopean  wall  which  surrounds  it,  which 
antedates  the  records  of  historic  times. 

Two  characteristics  of  Smyrna,  it  has 
been  pointed  out  by  eminent  authorities, 
are  alluded  to  in  the  beautiful  commen- 
datory words  of  Saint  John.  A  thousand 
years  before  Christ  Smyrna  was  a  great 
Grecian  city,  but  it  was  conquered  and 


48  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

destroyed,  wiped  off  the  face  of  the  map 
indeed,  by  the  Lydian  King  Alyates  about 
six  hundred  years  before  Christ.  Smyrna 
was  dead,  and  yet,  though  the  city  was 
destroyed,  it  lived,  for  there  were  many 
villages  round  about  the  ancient  city  that 
constituted  a  state  named  Smyrna.  The 
One  who  sends  the  message  to  Smyrna 
through  John  is  spoken  of  as  the  One 
"who  was  dead  and  is  alive,"  alluding,  of 
course,  to  our  Lord's  death  and  resur- 
rection, and  perhaps  with  a  secondary 
allusion  to  the  city  which  for  hundreds 
of  years  was  dead  and  then  lived  again, 
for  the  writer  in  a  wonderful  way  makes 
every  part  of  the  message,  even  the  in- 
scription, appropriate  to  the  history  and 
the  situation  of  the  city  to  which  he 
writes. 

Not  a  word  of  censure  or  a  suggestion 
of  blame  is  found  in  this  message.  This 
absence  of  reproof  it  shares  alone  with 
the  message  to  the  church  of  Philadel- 


SMYRNA  49 

phia.  But  it  was  not  a  rich  church  in 
the  usual  sense  of  the  word.  The  Reve- 
lator  knew  its  poverty  and  its  tribula- 
tions as  well  as  its  good  works.  And  here 
is  inserted  that  significant  and  beautiful 
parenthesis,  "but  thou  art  rich"— rich 
in  good  works,  rich  in  heavenly  treasure, 
rich  in  the  truest  kinds  of  wealth. 

Then  the  writer  predicts  the  sufferings 
which  would  surely  come  to  this  noble 
church:  "The  devil  shall  cast  some  of 
you  into  prison  that  ye  may  be  tried, 
and  ye  shall  have  tribulation  ten  days." 
Ten  days  is  a  limited  period  of  time 
which  will  come  to  an  end.  The  tribu- 
lation is  not  hopeless  and  measureless. 
Even  if  death  comes  it  matters  little,  as 
was  proven  in  the  case  of  Polycarp  and 
many  another  martyr  in  the  awful  per- 
secutions of  those  terrible  years  of  suffer- 


ing. 


Then  comes  the  glorious  reward.    "Be 
thou   faithful   unto  death,"   faithful   as 


50  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

Smyrna  had  been  to  the  Roman  power, 
with  which  she  had  early  thrown  in  her 
lot  and  been  known  as  the  "faithful 
city'  during  all  the  vicissitudes  and  the 
many  changes  of  Roman  rule.  So  be 
thou  faithful  to  thy  religion  and  thy 
Master,  says  the  Revelator,  "and  I  will 
give  thee  the  crown  of  life";  a  nobler 
crown  than  that  which  surmounted  the 
citadel  of  Mount  Pagus;  a  nobler  crown 
than  the  splendid  fortresses  and  buildings 
to  which  every  citizen  of  Smyrna  looked 
up  with  admiration  and  pride;  a  nobler 
crown  even  than  Apollonius  described 
when  he  told  them  it  was  a  "greater 
charm  to  wear  a  crown  of  men  than  a 
crown  of  porticoes" — even  the  crown  of 
life,  which  should  be  given  to  the  faith- 
ful church  by  him  who  was  the  First 
and  the  Last,  who  was  dead  and  yet  lived 
again. 

This,    too,    is    a   message    that    every 
Christian  may  well  take  to  heart.     The 


SMYRNA  51 

poor,  those  who  have  much  tribulation 
and  suffering,  those  who  are  ostracised, 
as  were  the  Christians  of  Smyrna  by  the 
Jews  who  belonged  to  the  synagogue  of 
Satan,  all  these  sons  and  daughters  of 
men,  yea,  all  true  Christians,  may  well 
take  to  heart  these  words:  "Be  thou 
faithful  even  unto  death,  and  I  will  give 
thee  the  crown  of  life.  He  that  over- 
cometh  shall  not  be  hurt  of  the  second 
death." 


CHAPTER  IV 

PERGAMOS,  THE  CITY  OF 
SATAN'S  SEAT 

We  left  Soma,  the  terminus  of  one 
branch  of  the  Anatolian  Railway,  early 
one  bright  February  morning  for  Per- 
gamos,  or  Pergamum  as  it  is  called  in 
the  revision,  the  ancient  capital  and 
most  important  city  of  the  province  of 
Asia.  Soma  is  a  good  place  to  get  away 
from,  and,  to  vary  a  modern  gibe,  con- 
cerning Boston,  of  which  New  York  peo- 
ple are  fond,  the  best  thing  about  Soma 
was  the  araba  which  took  us  away  from 
it.  This  araba  is  a  strong  spring  cart, 
covered  with  dirty  white  canvas,  looking 
not  unlike  a  butcher's  cart.  It  has  no 
seats  and  our  two  missionary  friends  and 

52 


PERGAMOS  53 

ourselves  piled  our  suitcases,  our  rugs, 
and  other  impedimenta  in  the  bottom  of 
the  araba  to  afford  as  comfortable  seats 
as  possible  for  the  bouncing,  jolting 
journey  of  forty-two  kilometres  that  lay 
before  us.  Our  driver  was  a  picturesque- 
looking  Greek,  sad  and  gloomy  but  hand- 
some and  with  a  Byronic  cast  of  feature. 
But  his  actions  were  not  as  handsome  as 
his  face  and  he  proved,  before  we  were 
through  with  him,  to  be  a  grasping  rascal. 
Pergamos  is  the  only  one  of  the  seven 
cities  that  must  be  reached  by  araba  or 
on  horseback,  for  all  the  rest  lie  within 
walking  distance  of  one  of  the  three  lines 
of  railway  in  Turkey.  The  February  air 
was  crisp  but  not  too  cold,  for  spring 
comes  early  in  this  part  of  Asia  Minor. 
The  apricot  and  peach-trees  were  in  full 
bloom  and  the  almond-trees  flourished  on 
every  side,  reminding  us  of  Solomon's  de- 
scription of  the  hoary  head  of  the  aged 
saint. 


54  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

The  ride  is  a  charming  one,  so  far  as 
the  scenery  is  concerned,  and  if  as  much 
could  be  said  for  the  road  over  which  we 
travelled  one  could  not  wish  a  more  de- 
lightful journey  than  that  from  Soma  to 
Pergamos.  But  like  all  Turkish  roads  the 
highway  in  many  parts  is  abominable. 
There  are  stretches  of  decent  road  alter- 
nating with  other  stretches  which  are 
quite  indescribable,  where  the  araba  sways 
and  pitches  and  rolls  like  a  ship  in  a 
heavy  sea.  Much  of  the  way  we  seemed 
to  be  on  the  edge  of  a  great  natural  bowl 
or  saucer,  with  the  valley  below  us  and 
the  outer  rim  of  the  bowl  on  the  opposite 
horizon.  In  the  early  morning  and  in 
the  sunset  light  the  purple  hills  in  the 
distance  are  beautiful  beyond  compar- 
ison. Especially  in  the  evening  a  long 
afterglow  illumines  them,  a  glow  even 
more  characteristic  of  Asia  Minor  than 
of  Switzerland. 

We  pass   many  groves  of   olive-trees 


PERGAMOS  55 

and  others  of  mulberries,  while  cherries 
and  peach  orchards  abound  in  many 
places.  This  is  a  cotton  country  too,  and 
the  bolls  of  last  year's  crop,  a  few  still 
ungathered,  decorate  the  dried  stalks. 
Now  and  then  we  pass  a  rude  little 
Turkish  village,  heralded  in  advance, 
usually,  by  a  cemetery  filled  with  cypress- 
trees  and  dilapidated  tombstones. 

As  we  drive  farther  from  Soma  small 
streams  become  more  numerous  and  we 
rattle  across  many  rude  wooden  bridges, 
unless  our  arabaji  prefers  to  drive 
through  the  stream  in  order  to  tighten 
up  his  tires  and  lave  the  feet  of  his  tired 
horses.  Kilometre  after  kilometre  is 
passed  and  at  last  a  turn  in  the  road 
shows  us  a  glorious  spectacle — the  lofty 
citadel  of  ancient  Pergamos,  the  city 
which  for  some  hundreds  of  years  was  the 
most  noted,  wealthy,  and  powerful  me- 
tropolis in  the  whole  province  of  Asia. 
A  noted  traveller  and  archaeologist  writes : 


56  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

"History  marked  it  out  as  the  royal 
city,  and  not  less  clearly  has  nature  done 
so.  No  city  of  the  whole  of  Asia  Minor, 
so  far  as  I  have  seen,  and  there  are  few  of 
any  importance  which  I  have  not  seen, 
possesses  the  same  imposing  and  domi- 
nating aspect.  It  is  the  one  city  of  the 
land  which  forced  from  me  the  exclama- 
tion: 'A  royal  city!'  There  is  something 
unique  and  overpowering  in  its  effect, 
planted  as  it  is  on  its  magnificent  hill, 
standing  out  boldly  in  the  level  plain, 
and  dominating  the  valley  and  the  moun- 
tains on  the  south."  * 

Though  I  can  scarcely  share  to  the  full 
Sir  William  Ramsay's  enthusiasm  for  the 
site  of  Pergamos,  it  is  certainly  striking 
and  imposing,  and  still  more  so  when 
viewed  as  he  viewed  it  in  the  light  of  its 
splendid  history. 

For  twenty-five  hundred  years  a  city, 
larger   or   smaller,   has   stood   upon   the 

*  Sir  William  Ramsay. 


PERGAMOS  57 

slope  of  this  commanding  hill  or  nestled 
at  its  feet,  but  it  was  not  until  three  cen- 
turies before  Christ  that  Philetaerus  re- 
volted from  King  Lysimachus,  whose 
vassal  he  was,  and  founded  the  kingdom 
of  Pergamos.  A  succession  of  brilliant 
kings  named  Attalus  reigned  in  Perga- 
mos, and  the  last  of  them,  Attalus  III, 
when  he  saw  that  the  Roman  power  was 
to  become  dominant  throughout  the 
world,  made  over  by  will  his  kingdom  to 
the  Roman  Emperor.  Then  it  became 
the  "Province  of  Asia,"  to  which  fre- 
quent allusion  is  made  in  the  Bible,  and 
Pergamos  for  two  centuries  and  a  half 
more  was  the  capital  of  this  great  prov- 
ince. 

A  fact  most  interesting  to  us  in  study- 
ing the  history  of  the  seven  churches  of 
Asia — and,  by  the  way,  all  these  Seven 
Churches  were  situated  within  the  borders 
of  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Pergamos — is 
the  fact  that  the  first  temple  where  the 


58  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

Emperor  was  worshipped  in  any  provin- 
cial Roman  city  was  Pergamos.  Here, 
about  thirty  years  before  Christ,  was 
built  this  splendid  temple  in  honour  of 
Rome  and  Augustus,  and  to  it  was 
brought  in  after  years  many  a  Christian 
who  was  commanded  to  worship  the 
statue  of  the  Emperor  and  burn  incense 
before  it.  If  he  refused,  the  most  awful 
fate  probably  awaited  him — martyrdom 
by  burning  at  the  stake.  Or  perhaps  he 
would  be  transported  to  Rome  and  there 
thrown  to  the  wild  beasts  in  the  Colos- 
seum. 

When  we  remember  these  facts,  and 
that  this  temple  was  the  place  where 
idolatrous  worship  was  enforced  by  all 
the  mighty  power  of  Rome,  we  can  under- 
stand why  Saint  John,  the  Revelator, 
should  call  it  " Satan's  Seat,"  or  "Satan's 
Throne."  Pergamos  had  long  been  a 
peculiarly  idolatrous  city.  The  native 
Anatolians  worshipped  animal  gods,  and 


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PERGAMOS  59 

though,  when  the  Greeks  came,  they  in- 
troduced more  spiritual  or  at  least  more 
artistic  divinities  like  Jupiter,  Minerva, 
and  iEsculapius,  yet  the  animal  gods 
still  were  worshipped  by  the  common 
people,  the  natives  of  the  province.  One 
of  the  coins  of  Pergamos  represents 
Caracalla,  the  Emperor,  adoring  the  ser- 
pent god  at  Pergamos.  Another  coin 
represents  a  serpent  wriggling  out  of  the 
mystic  box  of  Dionysos. 

Another  characteristic  of  Pergamos 
was  that  its  governor  had  the  right  of 
life  and  death.  He  had  absolute  author- 
ity to  kill  or  to  spare,  and  in  Saint  John's 
time  this  absolute  authority  with  which 
the  ruler  of  Pergamos  was  invested  was 
bitterly  hostile  to  the  Christians.  The 
one  who  wielded  the  power  of  life  and 
death,  the  Jus  gladii,  or  the  right  of  the 
sword,  hated  them  with  a  cruel  hatred. 

All  of  these  facts  we  must  bear  in  mind 
as  we  study  the  words  of  the  Revelator, 


60  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

the  one  who  styled  himself,  when  he 
wrote  to  the  angel  of  the  church  at  Per- 
gamos,  as  "He  that  hath  the  sharp  sword 
with  the  two  edges,"  an  evident  refer- 
ence to  the  right  of  the  sword  possessed 
by  the  proconsul  of  Pergamos. 

It  may  be  of  passing  interest  to  know 
that  Pergamos  to-day  seems  to  be  the 
seat  of  a  considerable  manufacture  of 
cutlery  and  swords,  and  one  of  the  me- 
mentoes which  I  have  brought  away  from 
the  modern  city  was  not  a  sharp  sword 
but  a  sharp  knife  with  two  edges  of  a 
style  such  as  I  have  seen  in  no  other  part 
of  the  world. 

The  Revelator  goes  on  to  say  to  the 
beleaguered  Christians  in  this  idolatrous 
city,  "I  know  where  thou  dwellest,  even 
where  Satan's  throne  is,"  the  great  Tem- 
ple of  Rome  and  Augustus,  where  is  set 
up  the  image  of  the  Emperor  before 
which  the  inhabitants  bow  down  and  to 
which  they  burn  incense  as  a  sign   of 


PERGAMOS  61 

their  loyalty  to  him.  But  even  there 
where  Satan's  throne  is  "thou  holdest 
fast  my  name,  and  hast  not  denied  my 
faith." 

These  must  have  been  precious,  com- 
forting words  to  the  faithful  few.  One 
of  these  faithful  ones  is  singled  out  and 
mentioned  by  name:  "Antipas,  my  faith- 
ful witness,  who  was  slain  among  you 
where  Satan  dwelleth."  But  doubtless 
there  was  many  another  Christian  who 
shared  the  same  fate,  perhaps  hundreds 
of  them  brought  from  all  the  country 
around  and  taken  to  "Satan's  throne' 
to  be  tested  as  to  the  reality  of  their 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ.  Alas !  all  the  Chris- 
tians of  Pergamos  were  not  like  An- 
tipas, and  the  One  that  hath  the  sharp 
sword,  because  of  them,  had  a  "few 
things"  against  the  church  in  Pergamos. 

Those  that  held  the  doctrines  of  Ba- 
laam were  largely  represented  in  the 
church.     Doubtless  these  doctrines  were 


62  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

the  same  as  those  of  the  Nicolaitans,  who 
were  elsewhere  denounced. 

They  were  the  lax,  yielding  Christians 
of  their  day,  who  found  it  easy  to  conform 
to  the  ways  of  the  world  and  the  temp- 
tations of  the  time.  They  had  little  of 
the  Puritan  blood  in  their  veins,  and  they 
could  easily  excuse  themselves,  doubtless, 
not  only  for  eating  things  sacrificed  to 
idols  but  for  occasionally  bowing  before 
the  statue  of  the  Emperor  and  burning 
a  little  incense  before  it. 

"The  Lord  knows,"  they  doubtless 
said,  "that  we  are  simply  showing  our 
loyalty  to  Rome  by  conforming  to  the 
custom  of  the  day.  The  Emperor  is  a 
mere  man  and  his  image  we  do  not  wor- 
ship, but  only  bow  before  it  to  show  our 
obedience  to  the  authority  of  our  Em- 
peror." 

Doubtless  the  Nicolaitans  of  those 
days  had  quite  as  many  excuses  for  their 
worldly  practices  as  the  Nicolaitans  of 


PERGAMOS  63 

modern  times.  But  to  them  comes  the 
sharp  and  terrible  reproof:  "Repent  or 
else  I  will  come  unto  thee  quickly  and 
fight  against  thee  with  the  sword  of  my 
mouth." 

But  to  the  faithful  members  of  the 
church  in  Pergamos  comes  a  blessed  and 
appropriate  reward.  The  "hidden  man- 
na' was  to  be  theirs,  which  they  might 
eat  and  gain  strength  for  their  terrible 
trials.  According  to  Jewish  history,  King 
Josiah,  or  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  when 
Solomon's  temple  was  destroyed,  hid  a 
pot  of  manna  which  the  Israelites  had 
gathered  in  the  wilderness,  and  had  kept 
it  in  the  holy  of  holies  that  it  might  not 
be  captured  by  Nebuchadnezzar's  army. 
What  became  of  this  pot  of  manna  was 
the  subject  of  different  traditions — one 
that  it  had  been  carried  up  into  heaven, 
another  that  it  was  concealed  in  a  cave 
of  Mount  Sinai  to  be  revealed  when  the 
Messiah  came. 


64  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

But  more  significant  still  was  the  white 
stone  which  was  to  be  given  to  the 
Christian  who  did  not  deny  his  Lord, 
even  in  Satan's  seat.  In  the  stone  was 
his  new  name.  It  was  an  old  Jewish 
custom,  when  a  man  was  sick  even  unto 
death,  as  it  was  supposed,  to  give  him 
another  name  by  which,  if  he  recovered, 
he  was  known  throughout  the  rest  of  his 
life.  To  those  who  were  faithful,  who 
overcame  the  sharpness  of  death  and  were 
not  afraid  of  its  terrors,  a  new  name 
was  to  be  given,  written  upon  the  white 
stone,  a  name  showing  that  they  were 
Christians.  This  very  word  itself  was  a 
new  name,  given  not  many  years  before 
at  Antioch  to  this  despised  and  perse- 
cuted sect. 

What  do  we  find  at  Pergamos  to-day? 
We  see,  in  fact,  two  cities:  a  city  of  ruins 
without  a  single  inhabitant  and  a  city 
of  the  living,  now  called  Bergama,  mean 
and  squalid,  to  be  sure,  in  comparison 


PERGAMOS  65 

with  its  ancient  glory,  but  busy  and 
bustling  and  interesting  as  a  typical  cen- 
tre of  modern  Greek  and  Turkish  life. 
Long  caravans  of  camels  march  through 
its  streets  in  almost  endless  procession, 
loaded  with  wood  charcoal,  chick-peas, 
millet,  wheat,  sesame,  lentils,  leeks,  car- 
rots, black  turnips,  chopped  hay,  and 
other  kinds  of  produce.  The  bazaars 
are  gay  with  bright  cloths,  wadded  jack- 
ets, embroidered  saddle-bags,  tinsel  orna- 
ments for  the  heads  of  women,  and  all 
sorts  of  cheap  jewellery  that  Birmingham 
or  Attleboro  can  furnish. 

The  streets  are  paved  with  cobble- 
stones set  on  edge  and  are  horrible  for 
the  pedestrian.  A  sewer  runs  down  the 
middle  of  each  street,  and  garbage  and 
refuse  of  all  kinds  are  thrown  out  of  ev- 
ery doorway  for  the  pariah  dogs  to  fight 
over.  There  seem  to  be  as  many  dogs 
as  men,  most  of  them  miserable,  depressed 
creatures  who  fight  with  one  another  over 


66  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

a  swill-pail  or  lie  curled  up  in  the  sun  by 
the  hour  together. 

One  of  the  most  attractive  features  of 
Bergama  are  the  fountains,  and  many 
an  old  sarcophagus  beautifully  sculptured 
on  every  side  is  now  used  as  a  water- 
ing-trough. Veiled  Turkish  women  with 
the  tips  of  their  noses  showing,  unveiled 
Greek  women,  and  a  multitude  of  men 
in  baggy  blue  trousers  are  the  principal 
people  whom  one  meets  on  the  street. 
In  the  provision-shops  one  sees  groceries 
of  various  kinds :  oranges,  dates,  and  pea- 
nuts; leeks,  onions,  and  garlic;  spinach, 
turnips,  and  potatoes;  long  strings  of 
dried  okra,  cauliflower,  and  cabbages; 
dried  squid  and  devil-fish  from  the  iEgean, 
and  the  various  kinds  of  helva  in  which 
the  Turkish  heart  delights. 

Such  a  modern  city,  however,  you 
might  find  almost  anywhere  in  Turkey, 
but  no  other  such  city  as  the  ancient 
Pergamos  do  you  find  the  wide  world 


Some  modern  Pergamonians. 


PERGAMOS  67 

around.  Climb  with  me  the  steep  slope 
of  the  ancient  citadel,  at  first  through 
the  narrow  street  lined  with  the  stone 
huts  of  modern  Pergamenians,  and  very- 
soon  we  come  to  the  borders  of  the  an- 
cient walled  city. 

More  than  thirty  years  ago  the  Ger- 
mans began  to  excavate  ancient  Pergamos 
and  made  some  wonderful  finds,  most  of 
which  are  transported  to  the  Pergame- 
nian  museum  in  Berlin,  but  still  there 
is  much  left  to  remind  the  traveller  of 
the  glorious  city  on  whose  grave  he  is 
walking.  There  are  many  white  stones 
lying  about  on  every  hand,  not  the  white 
pebbles  of  which  the  revelator  spoke,  on 
which  the  new  name  was  to  be  written, 
but  great  masses  of  marble,  fine  capitals 
beautifully  carved,  lofty  columns,  some 
standing  erect  and  others  prostrate,  wuth 
their  drums  scattered  about.  A  few 
headless  torsos  and  fragments  of  arms 
and  legs  strew  the  ground.     Here  is  a 


68  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

great  gymnasium,  covering  many  rods  in 
length,  with  many  beautiful  columns  still 
standing,  where  the  Grecian  youths  exer- 
cised themselves  in  games  of  all  sorts, 
and  there  the  remains  of  a  stately  old 
palace. 

Above  this,  on  a  higher  slope,  are  thea- 
tres and  temples,  the  great  altar  of  Zeus, 
of  which  there  is  nothing  left  but  an 
enormous  base  of  solid  masonry.  Still 
higher  up  on  the  hill  is  the  Temple  of 
Athense  Polias,  a  library,  and  beyond 
this,  perhaps  the  most  interesting  spot 
of  all  to  the  Christian,  the  ruins  of  the 
Temple  of  Rome  and  Augustus,  "Satan's 
Seat"  or  "Satan's  Throne,"  where  the 
cruel  test  which  meant  either  death  or 
denial  of  their  Lord  was  offered  to  so 
many  Christians.  Not  far  away  are  the 
ruins  of  the  Temple  of  Julia  and,  most 
massive  of  all,  a  magnificent  piece  of  the 
acropolis  wall,  built  of  enormous  stones, 
fully  a  hundred  feet  in  height  and  but- 


PERGAMOS  69 

tressing  part  of  the  hill  itself  and  extend- 
ing some  feet  above  it. 

No  description  can  give  the  reader  an 
adequate  account  of  these  extensive  ruins. 
They  cover  acres  and  acres  and  acres. 
To  see  them  all  one  must  wander  for 
miles  over  rough  and  steep  paths, 
often  climbing  over  huge  fragments  of 
marble  and  masonry,  mute  relics  of  past 
glories. 

The  view  from  the  summit  is  far  more 
beautiful  and  scarcely  less  impressive 
than  the  ruins  themselves.  Fifteen  miles 
away  one  catches  a  glimpse  of  the  bright 
waters  of  the  Mgesm.  In  the  nearer 
distance  rise  three  great  tumuli  some 
hundreds  of  feet  in  height,  the  graves  of 
forgotten  kings.  Pausanias,  writing  nine- 
teen hundred  years  ago,  tells  us  that  they 
are  the  tombs  of  Auge,  the  mother  of 
Telephus,  of  Andromache,  and  of  Per- 
gamos. 

Close  to  the  base  of  the  citadel  lies 


70  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

the  modern  town,  which  we  have  al- 
ready described,  but  it  looks  better  from 
a  distance,  and  its  fifteen  slender  min- 
arets relieve  the  city  of  the  sordid  ap- 
pearance which  it  presents  when  one  is 
in  its  crowded  streets. 

The  most  striking  ruin  within  the  con- 
fines of  the  modern  town  is  a  vast  library 
of  Roman  times.  This  reminds  us  that 
our  word  parchment  is  derived  from 
the  name  Pergamos  or  Pergamum,  where 
sheepskins  were  first  tanned  for  literary 
purposes.  In  this  library,  it  is  said,  were 
stored  no  less  than  two  hundred  thousand 
volumes,  or  rolls  of  parchment,  which 
Mark  Antony  gave  to  Cleopatra  in  or- 
der that  her  great  library  at  Alexandria 
might  not  be  surpassed  by  the  library  of 
Pergamos. 

Beyond  the  city  stretches  the  wide  and 
beautiful  valley  of  the  Caicus,  charm- 
ing as  we  saw  it  in  the  greenery  and 
blossoms  of  early  spring,  and  hemmed  in 


o 


PERGAMOS  71 

on  the  farther  side  by  glorious  moun- 
tains that  stretch  far  up  toward  the 
clouds. 

A  little  touch  of  homely  modern  life 
did  our  hearts  good  as  we  stood  upon 
the  ancient  citadel,  for  some  young  girls 
from  the  modern  town  had  come  up  to 
the  ruins  with  their  baskets  of  provisions 
to  enjoy  a  picnic  amid  the  marble  col- 
umns. Here  they  played  "Drop  the 
handkerchief,"  "Puss,  puss  in  the  cor- 
ner,' and  other  games  as  familiar  to 
the  children  of  America  as  to  the  de- 
scendants of  the  ancient  Pergamenians. 
From  a  spot  of  greensward  below  came 
the  voices  of  many  smaller  children  that 
sounded  pleasantly  as  they  mingled  with 
the  tinkling  of  the  distant  camel  bells, 
the  lowing  of  the  water-buffaloes,  and  the 
occasional  cry  of  the  muezzin  calling  to 
prayer  from  the  minaret. 

There  is  no  Protestant  church  and  per- 
haps no  Protestant  disciple  in  Pergamos, 


72  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

but  the  representatives  of  the  Christians 
to  whom  the  Revelator  wrote  belong  to 
the  Greek  Orthodox  faith. 

As  a  last  view  from  the  citadel  it  is 
pleasing  to  rest  our  eyes  upon  one  section 
of  the  ancient  library,  before  alluded  to, 
which  has  been  made  over  into  a  Chris- 
tian church,  the  Church  of  Saint  Antipas. 
It  is  an  enormous  circular  church  forty- 
five  feet  in  diameter  and  over  seventy 
feet  high,  while  the  walls  are  seven  feet 
thick,  and  there  is  an  opening  in  the  top 
something  like  that  in  the  Pantheon  at 
Rome.  Let  us  hope  that  in  this  Church 
of  Saint  Antipas  there  may  be  many 
Orthodox  Greek  Christians  who,  like 
Antipas  of  old,  are  Christ's  faithful  wit- 
nesses, who  will  receive  at  last  the  "hid- 
den manna'  and  the  "white  stone  with 
the  new  name." 


CHAPTER  V 

THYATIRA,    THE    CITY    OF    THE 
IRON  ROD  AND  THE  MORN- 
ING STAR 

At  first  sight  nothing  would  seem  more 
incongruous  than  the  conjunction  of 
these  two  figures  of  speech,  the  iron  rod 
and  the  morning  star,  and  yet  the 
promise  is  given  to  the  faithful  in  Thya- 
tira  that  they  shall  "rule  the  nations 
with  a  rod  of  iron"  and  that  to  them 
shall  be  given  "the  morning  star."  We 
may  be  able  to  see  later  the  significance 
of  these  striking  figures. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  traveller,  as 
he  approaches  the  modern  city  of  Thya- 
tira,  or  Ak-Hissar  (White  Castle,  in  En- 
glish), as  it  is  called  to-day,  can  see  in 

73 


74  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

this  second-rate  Turkish  town  anything 
to  remind  him  of  iron  power  over  the 
nations  or  of  the  brightness  of  the  morn- 
ing star,  for  it  is  mostly  built  of  mud, 
the  streets  are  narrow  and  straggling,  its 
bazaar  is  uninteresting,  and  it  has  all 
the  appearance  of  a  decadent  but  self- 
satisfied  little  city  whose  position  in  the 
centre  of  the  long  valley  that  connects 
the  two  great  valleys  of  the  Hermus  and 
the  Lycus  gives  it  a  certain  amount  of 
business  importance  which  its  own  en- 
terprise or  spirit  of  progress  scarcely  de- 
serves. 

Now,  as  always,  Thyatira  is  on  an 
important  trade  route.  Now  a  branch 
railway  line  runs  one  or  two  mixed  and 
exceedingly  slow  trains  of  freight  and 
passenger  cars  through  the  city  each  day. 
In  the  ancient  times  the  caravans  of 
horses  and  camels  brought  much  busi- 
ness to  its  doors,  as  a  sort  of  half-way 
house  between  the  great  capitals  of  Sar- 


Photograph  by  Mrs.  F.  E.  Clark. 

Street  in  modern  Thyatira. 


THYATIRA  75 

dis  and  Pergamos.  Moreover,  in  Roman 
times,  when  John  wrote  the  message  of 
the  Son  of  God  to  Thyatira,  the  city  was 
a  station  on  the  imperial  post-road  that 
connected  Rome  with  all  the  great  cities 
of  the  East. 

To-day  Pergamos  is  a  mere  shadow  of 
its  former  greatness;  Sardis  is  a  heap  of 
ruins  buried  under  a  mountain  avalanche; 
Rome  is  no  longer  the  world's  capital, 
and  the  great  cities  of  this  old  post-road 
are  of  no  consequence  as  emporiums  of 
trade.  In  consequence  of  this,  Thyatira 
has  declined  with  them,  for  she  was  al- 
ways dependent  for  her  prosperity  upon 
her  greater  and  stronger  neighbours. 
And  yet  we  find  much  that  is  interesting 
in  one  of  these  back  eddies  of  civilisation 
such  as  Thyatira  has  become. 

In  going  from  Smyrna  by  rail  we  change 
cars  at  Manisa,  a  place  of  considerably 
more  importance  to-day  than  Ak-Hissar. 
Manisa  is  the  old  Magnesia,  which  gave 


76  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

its  name  to  the  magnetic  iron  which  was 
first  found  in  its  vicinity,  and  hence  to 
our  common  English  word  magnet  and 
its  derivatives  as  well  as  to  the  well- 
known  drug  magnesia. 

Two  hours  by  rail  from  this  junction 
brings  us  to  a  substantial  stone  sta- 
tion across  the  front  of  which  we  read 
the  name  "Ak-Hissar."  We  have  come 
to  old  Thyatira.  One  of  the  broadest 
streets  in  Turkey,  lined  with  pleasant 
trees,  leads  from  the  station  to  the  heart 
of  the  town  half  a  mile  away.  There  is 
little  of  striking  and  unusual  interest  to 
describe  in  modern  Thyatira.  It  has  no 
great  citadel  or  acropolis  as  has  each  one 
of  the  other  Seven  Cities.  The  little  rise 
of  ground  which  formerly  contained  the 
fortifications  of  the  city  is  now  a  Turkish 
gentleman's  private  grounds.  The  great 
cypress-trees  are  the  one  redeeming  fea- 
ture which  add  a  touch  of  beauty  to  the 
town. 


THYATIRA  77 

Some  twenty  thousand  people  live  in 
Ak-Hissar  to-day,  and  the  nationalities 
are  about  equally  divided  between  the 
Greeks  and  the  Turks.  Our  hotel  is  a 
kind  of  khan,  with  a  few  tolerably  clean 
rooms  opening  upon  a  wide  courtyard, 
in  the  centre  of  which  is  a  great  plane- 
tree  shading  an  ever-flowing  fountain. 
Horses,  goats,  camels  and  donkeys,  hens 
and  ducks,  and  a  multitude  of  doves 
flying  to  their  windows,  share  the  hos- 
pitality of  the  courtyard  with  ourselves. 
Our  landlord  furnishes  only  room  and 
bed  for  the  two  "pieces  of  eight'  which 
he  charges  us,  and  so  we  must  go  out 
and  forage  for  ourselves  for  supper.  In 
the  straggling  bazaar  it  is  not  difficult  to 
find  sufficient  food  for  a  frugal  supper, 
with  eggs  at  ten  paras,  or  one  cent,  each, 
small  oranges  at  two  for  a  cent,  a  large 
loaf  of  bread  hot  from  the  oven  for  four 
cents,  and  buffalo's  milk  for  three  cents 
a  quart. 


78  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

Commonplace  and  uninteresting  as 
Thyatira  appears  at  first  sight,  it  is  yet 
a  city  with  a  great  and  varied  history. 
Its  position  on  one  of  the  great  com- 
mercial routes  of  the  world  made  it 
indispensable  to  the  successive  rulers  of 
Asia,  and  yet  it  was  impossible,  owing 
to  its  exposed  situation,  in  the  midst  of 
a  fertile  valley,  with  no  great  citadel  and 
no  commanding  hills  near  by,  to  defend 
itself  from  a  stronger  foe.  So,  more  than 
almost  any  city  of  antiquity,  it  has  been 
captured  and  recaptured,  destroyed  and 
built  up  and  destroyed  again,  sacked 
and  pillaged  and  burned  and  laid  low, 
and  then  has  risen  once  more  from  its 
ashes. 

It  was  founded  first  by  Seleucus  I, 
one  of  the  greatest  generals  of  Alexander 
the  Great,  whose  mighty  realm  stretched 
far  to  the  eastward  from  the  Hermus 
valley  to  the  mountains  of  India.  Ly- 
simachus  was  a  contemporary  ruler  to 


THYATIRA  79 

the  westward,  and,  in  order  to  defend 
Thyatira  against  his  invasions,  a  colony 
of  Macedonian  soldiers  was  established 
in  Thyatira  about  three  hundred  years 
before  Christ.  But  Thyatira  was  be- 
tween the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of 
Pergamos  on  the  north  and  the  kingdom 
of  the  Syrian  King  on  the  south  and  east, 
and  it  did  not  escape  the  fate  of  the  corn 
between  the  millstones. 

About  the  year  190  B.  C.  it  came  under 
the  power  of  Rome,  and,  though  in  the 
days  of  the  Republic  it  suffered  much 
from  oppression  and  extortion,  great 
commercial  prosperity  came  to  it  with 
the  inauguration  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
About  the  time  that  Saint  John  wrote 
the  Revelation  it  was  at  the  height  of  its 
wealth  and  prosperity  as  a  great  business 
city.  It  is  known  that  there  were  more 
trade  guilds  in  Thyatira  than  in  any 
other  city  of  Asia,  for  inscriptions  tell  us 
that  there  were  guilds  of  linen-workers, 


80  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

wool-workers,  dyers,  bronze-smiths,  pot- 
ters, bakers,  tanners,  and  slave-dealers. 
The  selling  of  ready-made  garments  was 
an  important  business  of  Thyatira,  but 
whether  there  was  the  accompaniment 
of  Jewish  sweat-shops,  long  hours,  and 
scanty  pay,  as  with  us  in  the  same  busi- 
ness, we  are  not  told. 

There  were  certainly  Jews  in  Thyatira, 
however,  for  Seleucus  was  always  hos- 
pitable to  this  race  when  he  founded  a 
new  city.  One  of  these  was  Lydia,  though 
she  was  probably  a  proselyte  to  the  Jew- 
ish religion  from  among  the  heathen.  At 
any  rate,  she  was  a  woman  of  Thyatira 
and  a  "seller  of  purple,"  and  of  all  the 
people  that  ever  lived  in  this  ancient  city 
she  alone  is  of  special  interest  to  the 
modern  Bible  student. 

We  remember  how  Paul  found  her  by 
the  riverside  in  Philippi,  when  on  the 
Sabbath  day  he  went  there  to  the  place 
" where  prayer  was  wont  to  be  made." 


THYATIRA  81 

We  know  how  attentive  she  was  to  the 
words  of  Paul,  how  she  was  baptised  with 
her  household  and  "besought"  Paul  and 
his  companions  and  even  "constrained" 
them  to  come  into  her  house  and  abide. 
Since  Thyatira  was  settled  first  by  Mace- 
donian soldiers,  it  was  natural  that  the 
city  should  keep  up  its  trade  connections 
with  the  parent  country,  and  equally 
natural  that  Lydia  should  go  there  to 
sell  her  fine  wares. 

The  purple  with  which  she  dyed  her 
linen  was  made  from  roots  found  in  the 
vicinity  of  Thyatira,  where  it  still  grows 
in  abundance.  We  should  scarcely  call 
the  colour  purple,  however,  nor  does  the 
Greek  word  indicate  the  colour  which  we 
now  know  as  purple.  One  of  our  party 
obtained  a  quantity  of  this  madder  root 
in  Thyatira,  and  after  boiling  it  for  sev- 
eral hours  produced  a  dye  of  a  rather 
unsatisfactory  reddish  colour.  Doubtless, 
had  she  had  Lydia's  recipe  for  making  the 


82  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

dye,  the  results  would  have  been  more 
satisfactory.  It  is  pleasant  to  believe, 
though  we  have  no  scriptural  authority 
for  it,  that  the  devout  Lydia,  after  she 
was  baptised  and  had  been  instructed  in 
Philippi  by  Paul  and  Silas  and  Luke  and 
Timothy,  went  back  to  Thyatira  and  es- 
tablished the  church  of  good  works  and 
love  and  service  and  faith  of  which  the 
Revelator  speaks. 

The  fact  that  the  one  who  sent  the 
message  to  the  church  at  Thyatira  is 
described  as  "One  with  eyes  like  unto  a 
flame  of  fire,  and  his  feet  like  molten 
brass,"  or  shining  bronze,  as  it  might  be 
translated,  reminds  us  that  the  bronze- 
smiths  of  Thyatira  constituted  a  famous 
guild.  One  of  the  extant  coins  of  the 
city  represents  a  bronze-worker  fash- 
ioning a  helmet  for  Minerva.  Thus,  in 
every  way  the  message  is  fitted  to  the 
people  to  whom  it  is  sent. 

Modern  Ak-Hissar,  like  ancient  Thya- 


THYATIRA  83 

tira,  is  still  in  the  midst  of  a  bountiful 
valley  and  the  fertility  of  the  soil  seems 
unimpaired.  Cotton  and  wheat,  maize 
and  olives,  still  constitute  the  riches  of 
the  city.  We  made  an  interesting  call  on 
a  feudal  lord  who  lives  on  a  low  hill  com- 
manding the  town,  the  ancient  acrop- 
olis of  Thyatira.  The  bey  is  an  inter- 
esting, well-educated  man,  belonging  to 
the  youngest  Young  Turk  party — that  is, 
the  party  that  protests  against  the  re- 
actionary element  of  the  Young  Turks. 
He  lives  in  a  fine  stone  house,  and  in  his 
large  and  well-furnished  reception-room 
he  showed  us  a  picture  of  the  landing  of 
King  George  and  Lord  Kitchener  at  Port 
Said,  an  event  which  had  just  taken 
place,  as  well  as  a  statuette  of  the  late 
King  Edward,  for  he  is  an  admirer  of 
England  and  her  institutions. 

In  his  ample  grounds  is  a  large  foun- 
tain made  from  an  old  sarcophagus, 
covered  with  an  inscription  in  ancient 


84  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

Greek  which  tells  us  that  it  was  erected 
in  memory  of  a  beloved  wife.  How  little 
we  know  and,  alas,  how  little  we  care  for 
the  unknown  widower  of  two  thousand 
years  ago  and  the  dear  wife  whose  death 
caused  him  so  much  grief! 

Another  interesting  feature  of  modern 
Thyatira  is  the  manufacture  of  carpets. 
This  is  carried  on  in  many  rather  humble 
and  obscure  quarters,  but  most  beautiful 
fabrics  are  the  output  of  these  factories. 
The  girls  who  weave  them  are  exceedingly 
skilful,  and  they  tie  and  cut  the  woof  of 
the  rugs  with  motions  so  rapid  that  we 
could  not  see  their  hands  go  back  and 
forth,  as  when  watching  the  most  skilful 
piano-player  the  eye  is  not  quick  enough 
to  follow  his  swift  motions.  A  rug 
that  four  girls  were  making,  we  were 
told,  would  sell  on  the  spot  for  a  hundred 
dollars,  but  it  would  take  these  girls 
fifteen  long  days  to  make  it. 

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THYATIRA  85 

gion,  and  two  years  before  our  visit  was 
terribly  shaken.  Several  minarets  were 
thrown  down,  and  now  on  the  broken 
fragment  the  muezzin  comes  out  five 
times  a  day  to  proclaim  to  the  people 
that  "God  is  great,"  that  "prayer  is  bet- 
ter than  sleep,"  that  "prayer  is  better 
than  food,"'  and  that  they  should  "come 
to  prayer,  come  to  prayer." 

Since  the  message  to  Thyatira,  as  to 
the  other  churches,  was  addressed  to  the 
"angel,"  who  is  supposed  to  be  the  min- 
ister of  the  church,  it  is  interesting  to 
know  that  there  is  an  angel  of  what  we 
believe  to  be  the  true  church  still  in 
Thyatira.  His  name  is  George  Prus- 
saevs.  He  is  the  pastor  of  the  Protestant 
Greek  Church  in  this  city,  the  only  one  of 
the  seven,  save  Smyrna,  that  can,  so  far 
as  we  know,  boast  a  single  Protestant 
Christian.  He  is  an  earnest,  faithful 
minister  of  the  church,  trained  in  one 
of  the  mission  theological  schools  of  the 


86  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

American  Board,  with  a  wife  who  is  a 
true  helpmeet  and  three  beautiful  little 
children,  Syntiche,  Lydia,  and  Chloe. 
May  the  little  Lydia  of  Thyatira,  as  she 
grows  up,  rival  in  faith  and  good  works 
the  older  Lydia,  the  purple-seller  who 
made  her  native  city  famous! 

As  to  the  message  to  the  church  in 
Thyatira,  it  is  an  obscure  and  difficult 
one  to  interpret,  since  we  know  so  little 
of  the  prevalent  customs  and  heresies  of 
that  time.  Commentators  differ  as  to 
the  "woman  Jezebel,"  some  claiming  that 
she  was  a  heathen  priestess  who  stood 
for  all  manner  of  licentious  rites  and  evil 
practices,  and  others  that  she  was  the 
leader  of  the  Nicolaitans,  a  division  of 
the  church  that  claimed  to  be  none  the 
less  Christian  because  it  tolerated  some 
heathen  customs,  like  eating  meat  offered 
to  idols,  offering  incense  to  the  statue  of 
the  Emperor,  joining  social  clubs,  which 
were  numerous  in  those  days  and  which 


THYATIRA  87 

often  fostered  much  debauchery  and  even 
licentiousness. 

Many  of  these  clubs  were  connected 
with  the  trade  guilds,  and  on  this  account 
Thyatira,  which  was  famous  for  these 
guilds,  offered  special  temptations  to  the 
Christians  who  belonged  to  them  to  con- 
done, even  if  they  did  not  approve  of, 
the  unchristian  practices  of  many  of  the 
members. 

The  praise  accorded  in  the  first  part  of 
the  message  to  the  church  of  Thyatira 
seems  to  give  colour  to  this  interpretation, 
for  the  Son  of  God  himself  says:  'I  know 
thy  works,  and  love  and  service  and 
faith,  and  that  thy  last  works  are  more 
than  the  first/'  It  is  thought  by  many 
that  the  Nicolaitans,  though  their  doc- 
trines were  wrong,  and  their  compliance 
with  the  practices  of  the  heathen  neigh- 
bours was  most  dangerous,  yet  were  still 
active  in  good  works,  and  perhaps  vied 
with  their  stricter  and  more  puritanical 


88  THE   SEVEN  CHURCHES 

church  members  in  acts  of  benevolence 
and  subscriptions  to  all  good  causes,  so 
that  the  "last  works  were  more  than  the 
first." 

Nevertheless,  the  seeds  of  failure  and 
destruction  of  the  church  lay  in  the  lax- 
ness  of  the  Nicolaitans.  It  is  the  old, 
ever-recurring  struggle  of  expediency 
against  duty.  How  far  shall  we  go? 
how  far  conform  to  the  world,  indulge  in 
their  amusements,  join  their  clubs,  and 
live  their  life?  Doubtless,  the  Nicolaitans 
had  a  thousand  good  reasons,  or  reasons 
that  seemed  to  them  good,  for  their  doc- 
trines and  their  manner  of  life.  "They 
could  do  more  good  by  remaining  in 
these  clubs  and  exerting  a  good  influence 
within  them."  They  did  not  wish  to 
appear  "sour"  and  "strait-laced'  and 
'puritanical."  They  could  perform  just 
as  many  acts  of  charity  and  benevolence 
as  though  they  were  the  strictest  puri- 
tans. 


THYATIRA  89 

But  the  Revelator  does  not  accept 
their  excuses  or  their  reasoning.  He 
knows  that  either  the  church  or  the 
world  must  prevail,  and  that  to  conform 
to  the  heathen  world  is  sure  death  to  the 
church.  Therefore,  he  had  "a  few  things" 
against  the  church  of  Thyatira:  it  has 
not  cast  out  the  "  woman  Jezebel, "  but  al- 
lows her  and  her  followers  to  remain  in 
good  and  regular  standing  in  the  church. 

A  terrible  woe  is  denounced  against 
this  woman  who  called  herself  a  proph- 
etess and  was  a  leader  of  the  Nicolai- 
tans,  but  not,  perhaps,  exactly  the  woe 
that  the  words  at  first  blush  seem  to  in- 
dicate. The  "bed'  is  supposed  to  be 
the  couch  where,  at  the  club,  the  revellers 
reclined  while  they  feasted,  and  the  pas- 
sage denouncing  Jezebel  has  been  freely 
translated:  "I  set  her  on  a  dining-couch 
and  her  vile  associates  with  her.  I  gave 
her  space  to  repent  and  she  repented  not, 
and  I  will  kill  her  disciples  with  a  mys- 


90  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

terious  disease,  and  all  the  churches  shall 
know  that  I  am  He  that  searcheth  the 
reins  and  the  heart." 

But,  in  spite  of  Jezebel  and  the  Nico- 
laitans,  the  writer  is  sure  of  the  final 
triumph  of  the  church  and  of  the  right. 
Those  who  have  not  followed  the  teach- 
ings of  Jezebel  are  not  required  to  leave 
the  world  for  a  hermit's  cave,  to  cut  off 
all  intercourse  with  the  heathen,  for  "no 
other  burden'  is  put  upon  them  than 
that  which  was  decided  by  the  Apostles 
in  former  days  to  be  absolutely  necessary 
for  the  preservation  of  the  purity  of  the 
church,  "that  they  abstain  from  fornica- 
tion and  from  things  offered  to  idols. ': 

To  those  who  keep  themselves  pure  a 
glorious  reward  is  promised.  Their  power 
shall  exceed  the  power  of  Rome  that 
ruled  over  the  nations.  They,  too,  shall 
rule  with  a  rod  of  iron.  Even  this  di- 
vided church  in  this  comparatively  ob- 
scure and  unimportant  city  of  Thyatira 


THYATIRA  91 

shall  triumph,  and  its  faithful  members 
shall  become  ruling  princes  with  the  al- 
mighty power  of  the  Father.  The  con- 
trast between  weak  Thyatira  and  this 
promise  of  victory  and  mighty  power  is 
all  the  more  striking.  But  not  only  shall 
the  faithful  have  power,  but  brightness 
and  glory,  for  the  morning  star  shall  be 
given  to  them.  Obscure,  despised,  re- 
proached for  their  puritanism  and  their 
separateness,  they  shall  yet  shine  in  the 
firmament,  the  observed  of  all  observers. 
By  this  beautiful  passage  we  are  re- 
minded of  the  glorious  promise  of  the 
prophet:  "They  that  be  wise  shall  shine 
as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament,  and 
they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as 
the  stars  for  ever  and  ever." 

He  that  hath  an  ear  let  him  hear  what 
the  Spirit  saith  unto  the  churches. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SARDIS,  THE  BURIED  CITY 

Of  all  the  Seven  Cities  of  Asia,  perhaps 
Sardis  has  the  most  interesting  and  ro- 
mantic history,  and  yet,  with  all  its  nat- 
ural advantages — its  wealth,  its  famous 
rulers,  its  wise  counsellors,  its  victorious 
armies — it  was  the  greatest  failure  of 
them  all,  and  its  church  merited  the 
severest  reprimand  from  the  Revelator  of 
any  of  its  sisters.  The  richest  man  in 
the  world,  Crcesus,  had  been  the  King  of 
Sardis;  the  wisest  man,  Solon,  had  been 
her  guest;  and  yet,  as  we  shall  later 
see,  through  overconfidence  and  lack  of 
watchfulness,  time  and  again  it  was  sur- 
prised, conquered,  and  all  but  destroyed, 
until  at  last  the  disintegrating  rock  and 

92 


SARDIS  93 

soil  from  its  own  citadel,  loosened  by 
the  winter  rains  and  hurled  down  by 
destructive  earthquakes,  buried  the  city 
thirty  feet  deep  from  the  sight  of  man. 

It  became  a  dead  city  and  it  was  buried 
by  the  forces  of  nature.  The  church  in 
Sardis  seems  to  have  shared  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  city.  It,  too,  was  dead, 
as  we  are  told,  and  apparently  through 
lack  of  watchful  care,  for,  twice  over, 
practically  the  same  message  comes  to  it : 
"Be  watchful;  if,  therefore,  thou  shalt 
not  watch  I  will  come  on  thee  as  a  thief, 
and  thou  shalt  not  know  what  hour  I 
will  come  upon  thee."  This  interesting 
correspondence  between  the  history  of 
the  city  of  Sardis  and  the  message  to  the 
church  of  Sardis  will  be  understood  as 
the  story  of  the  city  and  of  the  church  is 
developed. 

Sardis  was  a  very  old  city,  far  older 
than  Thyatira  or  Pergamos  or  even 
Ephesus.      More    than    three    thousand 


94  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

years  ago  it  was  a  great  city.  Before  the 
dawn  of  recorded  time  it  was  very  likely 
inhabited,  at  least  as  a  robber  strong- 
hold, for  its  original  situation  made  it 
seemingly  impregnable  and  enabled  it 
to  lay  all  the  country  round  about  under 
tribute.  But  the  day  of  its  greatest 
glory  and  splendour  did  not  come  until 
about  twenty-five  hundred  years  ago, 
when  Croesus  became  its  king.  He  was 
the  more  famous  son  of  a  famous  father, 
Alyattes.  He  conquered  all  the  people 
round  about  and  reigned  in  unparalleled 
magnificence  in  his  splendid  capital. 

Sardis,  which  had  at  first  been  merely 
the  citadel  on  a  steep  and  almost  inac- 
cessible plateau  five  hundred  feet  above 
the  plains,  had  by  this  time  moved  down 
from  its  lofty  perch  to  the  valley  below, 
and  palaces  and  temples  and  gymnasiums 
and  magnificent  private  homes  made  it  a 
metropolis  to  be  spoken  of  with  wonder 
and   respect  by   all  the  peoples   of  the 


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SARDIS  95 

world.  The  river  Pactolus,  renowned  for 
its  golden  sands,  which,  according  to 
tradition,  Midas,  who  turned  everything 
that  he  touched  into  gold,  had  enriched 
as  he  ploughed  his  way  along  its  watery 
flood,  ran  through  the  heart  of  the  city. 

Croesus,  first  of  all  the  kings  of  an- 
tiquity, minted  gold  and  silver  coins, 
which  were  a  medium  of  exchange  both 
in  the  East  and  the  West,  from  Baby- 
lonia to  Greece.  Thus,  by  his  shrewd- 
ness, he  became  the  banker  of  the  Occi- 
dent and  the  Orient,  the  Rothschild,  the 
Rockefeller,  the  J.  P.  Morgan  of  his  day, 
all  combined  into  one,  for  his  wealth 
came  not  only  from  the  soil  but  from 
his  shrewdness  as  a  banker  and  money- 
lender. 

But  he  was  not  satisfied  with  his  pos- 
sessions or  glory,  and  so  set  out  to  con- 
quer the  Persians.  He  apparently  gave 
little  heed  to  Solon,  the  wisest  man  of 
Athens,  who  visited  him  in  Sardis  and 


96  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

told  him   to    beware   of    overconfidence 
and  not  to  esteem  any  man  happy  until 
he  was  dead  and  his  record  fully  made  up. 
He   consulted    the   Delphic    oracle   of 
Greece,  and  received  the  answer,  which 
to  him  seemed  to  be  reassuring,  that  if 
he  crossed  the  Halys  he  would  destroy  a 
mighty  empire.     Full  of  assurance  of  his 
own   resistless  might,  he  did   cross   the 
Halys,  and  a  great  empire  was  destroyed 
but  not  the  empire  of  Cyrus  the  Persian, 
but  of  Crcesus  the  Lydian,  for  after  his 
first   victory   Cyrus   followed   it   up   by 
boldly  attacking  Sardis  the  impregnable. 
His  soldiers,  one  by  one,  by  digging  their 
toes  into  the  cracks  of  the  rocks,  climbed 
up  the  almost  perpendicular  slope  of  the 
acropolis,  on  the  side  which  was  thought 
to  be  absolutely  unscalable  and  was  hence 
left  unguarded,  and,  to  the  amazement 
of  the  Lydian  capital  and  the  surprise  of 
the  whole  world,  Sardis  was  taken,  its 
multimillionaire  king  was  a  prisoner,  and 


SARDIS  97 

the  lingering  death  of  the  proud  city  had 
begun. 

It  had  revivals,  to  be  sure,  as  well  as 
reverses,  but  it  never  regained  the  emi- 
nence that  it  enjoyed  in  the  palmy  days 
of  Croesus,  and  when  Saint  John  wrote 
the  Revelation  it  was  decadent  and  still 
decaying,  and  the  church  was  apparently 
sharing  the  fate  of  the  city. 

The  city  still  had  "a  name  to  live";  it 
prided  itself  on  its  glorious  past;  it  re- 
counted its  noble  history;  it  made  a  plea 
in  the  commune  of  Asia  to  erect  a  temple 
to  Tiberius  and  Livia,  his  mother. 

It  had  little  present  power  or  glory  to 
plead,  but  only  its  renowned  history,  and 
the  judges  who  had  to  decide  among 
nine  cities  that  claimed  the  honour  of  the 
temple  gave  it  to  Smyrna,  the  living,  in- 
stead of  Sardis,  the  dead. 

Three  centuries  after  the  defeat  of 
Crcesus  the  city  again  suffered  the  same 
fate  through  carelessness   and   overcon- 


98  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

fidence,  for  Antiochus  surprised  and  cap- 
tured it  from  its  reigning  king,  Achaeus, 
in  the  same  way  that  the  soldiers  of  Cyrus 
had  done,  by  stealing  into  the  fortifica- 
tions after  scaling  what  was  believed  to 
be  the  unscalable  mountainside.  Sardis 
had  learned  nothing  by  the  experience 
of  the  past,  and  still  needed  the  warning 
words:  "Be  watchful/' 

Upon  the  later  history  of  Sardis  we 
need  not  dwell.  It  was  a  city  of  con- 
siderable importance  in  the  Byzantine 
times.  Its  citadel  was  again  a  robber 
fastness  in  the  early  Mohammedan  rule, 
but  it  is  now  absolutely  dead,  deserted 
and  buried,  for,  as  has  been  said,  the 
mountain,  which  was  once  its  stronghold 
and  citadel,  disintegrated  in  the  slow  cen- 
turies, hastened  by  earthquakes,  fell  over 
in  part  upon  the  city  it  had  so  long 
defended,  and  thirty  feet  deep  beneath 
the  soil  Sardis  lay  for  centuries,  until  re- 
cent   American    excavaters   brought    its 


SARDIS  99 

temples  and  its  tombs  again  to  the  light 
of  day. 

Yet,  among  all  the  cities  that  I  have 
visited,  I  know  of  none  which  even  in  its 
deadness  and  desolation  is  of  more  thrill- 
ing interest  to  the  modern  traveller.  We 
leave  the  Ottoman  railway  at  Sardes,  as 
it  is  called  in  the  time-table,  or  Sart,  as 
the  Turks  call  it,  a  hundred  and  twenty- 
four  kilometres  from  Smyrna,  or  about 
seventy-five  miles.  There  is  absolutely 
nothing  at  first  sight  to  remind  us  that 
there  was  once  a  great  city  with  its 
teeming  population  in  this  vicinity. 

Few  ruins  are  seen,  and  those  of  a  com- 
paratively modern  date,  as  we  follow  the 
valley  of  the  Pactolus  for  a  mile  or  more 
from  the  railway  station;  only  the  blue 
heavens  above,  some  fleecy  clouds  that 
fleck  them,  and  the  sun  shining  in  its 
strength  are  the  same  as  in  the  days  of 
Croesus.  Even  the  everlasting  hills  have 
changed  their  shape,  for  they  are  made 


100  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

up  of  a  friable  substance  scarcely  more 
solid  than  hardened  mud,  and  the  great 
acropolis  which  once  terminated  in  a 
broad  plateau,  on  which  a  fortified  city 
could  be  built,  has  now  been  so  washed 
away  and  overthrown  by  the  convulsions 
of  nature  that  in  places  it  requires  a 
steady  nerve  to  thread  its  narrow,  roof- 
like summit.  Still,  it  is  a  most  striking 
feature  of  the  landscape,  more  pictur- 
esque, possibly,  than  in  the  ancient  times. 
A  few  ruins  of  ancient  buildings  with 
enormously  thick  walls  are  passed ;  a  few 
miserable  huts  made  of  reeds  and  oc- 
cupied by  Yuruks,  the  wandering  nom- 
ads of  this  country,  are  seen;  the  little 
Pactolus  gurgles  over  its  rocky  bed  on 
its  way  to  join  the  Hermus,  and  the  whole 
scene  is  one  of  desolation  and  untamed 
nature.  Scarcely  can  the  furrow  of  a 
plough  be  seen  in  any  direction  as  one 
approaches  ancient  Sardis.  The  beau- 
tiful anemones  and  other  wild  flowers  add 


SAUDIS  101 

their  grace  to  the  scene,  but  there  are  no 
touches  of  man's  embellishment. 

At  last,  after  walking  about  a  mile, 
two  tall  pillars  loom  upon  the  sight,  and 
we  know  that  we  are  approaching  the 
ancient  Temple  of  Cybele,  or  Artemis,  as 
it  is  called  by  more  modern  explorers. 
As  we  draw  still  nearer  a  busy  scene  pre- 
sents itself  to  our  eyes.  Two  hundred 
workmen  and  more  are  industriously 
digging  in  the  sandy  soil.  A  busy  little 
tramway  loaded  with  gravel  and  loam  runs 
down  a  slight  descent  toward  the  Pac- 
tolus  by  force  of  gravity,  while  the  empty 
trucks  are  pushed  back  by  the  sturdy 
Turkish  workmen.  Half  a  dozen  Amer- 
ican scholars  and  archaeologists  and 
engineers,  under  the  leadership  of  Pro- 
fessor Butler,  of  Princeton,  are  directing 
the  operation.  An  eighth  of  a  mile  away, 
under  the  crowning  acropolis  of  old,  stands 
the  comfortable  house  and  temporary 
museum  built  by  these  American  archae- 


102  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

ologists  for  their  occupancy  during  the 
years  that  will  be  required  to  dig  out 
this  ancient  city.  All  around  the  ruins 
are  glorious  hills.  Opposite  the  acropolis 
that  has  played  so  great  a  part  in  the 
story  of  Sardis,  and  perhaps  half  a  mile 
away,  is  another  great  hill  of  about  the 
same  height,  which  was  the  necropolis 
of  the  ancient  city.  Here,  too,  the  ar- 
chaeologists are  at  work  and  have  dis- 
covered hundreds  of  tombs  of  Lydian 
and  Persian  times. 

The  very  day  that  we  reached  there  a 
new  sarcophagus  had  been  unearthed  in 
the  hillside,  a  Persian  sarcophagus  of 
black  terra-cotta,  beautifully  striped  and 
marked  and  of  oblong  shape.  It  was 
opened,  and  there,  seeing  the  light  of  the 
sun  for  the  first  time  for  thirty-five  hun- 
dred years,  was  the  body  of  a  Persian 
girl,  perhaps  of  the  period  of  Cyrus  the 
Great.  Her  glossy  black  hair  was  still 
perfect,  and  the  jewels  and  tear-bottles 


SARDIS  103 

and  vases  that  were  buried  with  her  were 
unbroken  and  untarnished.  Who  wert 
thou,  O  maiden  of  long  ago?  What  was 
thy  name  and  what  was  thy  story?  Who 
mourned  for  thee  as  thou  wast  laid  in  thy 
grave?  Did  father  or  mother  or  brother 
or  lover  drop  tears  on  thy  beautiful  cas- 
ket? There  is  no  answer  to  these  ques- 
tions, but  our  imaginations  are  stirred 
as  we  gaze  at  the  dust  of  this  maiden  of 
the  long  ago. 

Interesting  as  is  this  ancient  cemetery, 
yet  the  chief  centre  of  attraction  is  in 
the  valley  between  the  acropolis  and  the 
necropolis,  the  citadel  and  the  cemetery, 
where  the  busy  workmen  are  revealing 
day  by  day  the  glories  of  ancient  Sardis. 
The  two  pillars  of  which  we  have  already 
spoken  are  only  samples  of  scores  of  others 
belonging  to  the  same  Temple  of  Artemis 
which,  until  the  Americans  fell  to  digging 
them  out,  were  buried  many  feet  beneath 
the  soil.    These  two  only  were  upright, 


104  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

with  their  capitals  intact,  and  stood 
thirty-five  feet  above  the  ground  after 
the  storms  and  earthquakes  of  a  thousand 
years  had  done  their  worst.  But  even 
these  were  half  buried,  for  almost  thirty- 
five  feet  below  the  surface  the  workmen 
had  to  dig  before  they  reached  the  foun- 
dation of  these  pillars  of  the  mighty 
temple,  each  one  of  which  stood  sixty- 
nine  feet  above  the  floor  of  the  temple 
and  each  one  of  which  was  six  feet  in 
diameter. 

The  other  pillars  are  only  partially 
intact,  and  some  of  them  entirely  pros- 
trate, with  their  enormous  drums  or 
sections  scattered  about  in  every  direc- 
tion. This  temple  was  probably  built  in 
the  time  of  Alexander  the  Great,  about 
350  B.  C,  or  perhaps  only  repaired  in  his 
time,  for  he  was  one  of  the  conquerors 
of  this  often-conquered  city.  Indeed,  the 
temple  seems  to  have  been  undergoing 
extensive  repairs  when  it  was  completely 


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SARDIS  105 

destroyed  in  the  year  17  A.  D.,  for  some 
of  the  great  columns  are  not  yet  fluted, 
showing  that  they  were  still  unfinished. 

But  more  marvellous  still  are  the  ruins 
of  a  temple  found  in  a  yet  lower  stratum, 
and  built  not  of  marble,  like  the  one  I 
have  described,  but  of  a  coarser,  darker 
stone.  This  is  believed  to  be,  without 
question,  a  temple  of  Croesus,  the  most 
famous  of  the  many  kings  of  Sardis. 

Everything  of  value  found  here  must, 
according  to  the  agreement,  be  sent  to 
Constantinople,  but  temporarily  they  are 
stored  in  the  little  museum  under  the 
steep  acropolis.  Here  are  many  curious 
things — alabaster  vases  so  thin  that  they 
could  easily  be  crushed  in  the  hand  like 
an  egg-shell.  Just  such  a  vase  Mary 
Magdalene  broke  when  she  bathed  her 
Lord's  feet  with  the  precious  ointment. 
Great  earthen  jars  used  for  the  ashes 
and  the  charred  bones  of  the  dead  who 
had  been  cremated  are  found  here.   Mar- 


106  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

ble  slabs  are  here  covered  with  Lydian 
inscriptions  which  cannot  yet  be  trans- 
lated, for  no  one  is  yet  wise  enough  to 
read  the  ancient  Lydian,  though  the 
letters  are  as  sharp  and  clear-cut  as 
though  chiselled  yesterday.  I  cannot  de- 
scribe these  remarkable  finds  at  length, 
nor  would  I  if  I  could,  for  that  honour 
and  privilege  must  be  given  to  the  pa- 
tient excavaters  whose  monograph  on 
the  ancient  Sardis  will  be  awaited  with 
the  utmost  interest  by  scholars  in  many 
lands. 

One  of  the  most  marvellous  sights  that 
the  traveller  sees  from  the  hills  of  Sardis 
is  the  Bin  Tepe,  or  the  plain  of  a  thou- 
sand mounds,  where  the  kings  and  priests 
and  great  men  of  Lydia  were  buried,  not 
in  the  hillside  necropolis  which  I  have 
already  described,  but  in  a  great,  wide 
plain  some  two  hours'  ride  from  Sardis. 

Some  of  these  mounds,  or  tumuli,  are 
enormous  in  extent,  one  of  them  being 


a 


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<u 


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13 


1> 


m 


SARDIS  107 

larger  than  the  Pyramid  of  Ghizeh  in 
Egypt.  There  are  not  a  thousand  of 
these  tombs,  but,  to  be  more  exact,  about 
six  hundred  and  sixty-six  of  them.  The 
largest  is  that  of  the  great  King  Alyat- 
tes,  which  Herodotus  minutely  describes. 
This  is  circular  in  form  and  twelve  hun- 
dred feet  in  diameter.  As  one  looks 
through  the  cleft  of  the  mountains  that 
hem  in  Sardis,  it  seems  as  if  this  plain 
were  dotted  with  green  hills,  some  of 
them  of  a  considerable  height,  but  each 
one  of  them  is  a  single  tomb  of  one  of 
the  great  men  of  the  mighty  kingdom  of 
Lydia. 

Such  are  the  scenes,  picturesque  and 
striking,  but,  at  the  same  time,  desolate 
and  depressing,  which  strike  the  traveller 
as  he  visits  the  dead  and  buried  city  of 
Sardis.  What  is  the  message  sent  by 
"Him  that  hath  the  seven  spirits  of  God 
and  the  seven  stars"? 

It  is  the  saddest  of  all  the  seven  mes- 


108  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

sages.  The  Revelator  knows  the  works  of 
the  church,  but  has  no  word  of  praise  for 
them,  as  he  had  for  the  church  of  Ephesus, 
though  in  many  respects  the  messages  to 
these  two  churches  are  much  the  same. 
Sardis  had  not  only  left  its  first  love,  as 
had  Ephesus,  but  it  was  dead,  though 
it  had  a  name  to  live.  The  church  was 
an  empty  organisation  without  life.  It 
had  wheels  within  wheels,  perhaps,  but 
no  living  spirit  within  the  wheels.  Even 
the  church  at  Pergamos  that  dwelt  be- 
side "Satan's  Seat"  was  praised  for  hold- 
ing fast  the  holy  name  and  for  not  deny- 
ing the  faith;  but  there  was  no  faithful 
martyr  Antipas  in  Sardis  to  receive  such 
praise. 

Yet,  though  the  church  as  a  church 
was  dead,  like  many  another  church, 
alas,  far  away  from  Sardis,  there  were 
a  few  names  even  there  that  had 
not  defiled  their  garments.  Some  things 
remained  even  in  a  dead  church,  as  to-day 


SARDIS  109 

a  faithful  and  scanty  minority  may  keep 
alive  in  their  own  heart  the  love  of 
Christ  even  when  they  cannot  revive 
the  church  of  which  they  are  members. 
Twice  over  to  the  faithful  few  came  the 
message:  "Be  watchful!"  Even  as  the 
citadel  of  Sardis  was  surprised  and  taken 
twice  over  and  two  great  dynasties  over- 
thrown for  lack  of  watchfulness,  so  the 
faithful  ones  are  exhorted  to  watch  that 
they  may  save  at  least  their  own  souls 
and  at  last  be  worthy  to  walk  with  the 
Son  of  Man  in  white. 

To  these  few  came  even  a  more  beau- 
tiful and  consoling  message  than  to  any 
other  church  of  the  seven.  These  few 
that  have  overcome  shall  be  clothed  in 
white  garments,  like  the  pure  white  toga 
worn  by  Roman  citizens  on  days  of 
triumph  as  they  walked  through  the 
streets  of  Rome,  following  the  victorious 
general  who  had  come  with  trophies  won 
in  battle  over  a  foreign  foe. 


110  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

So  the  faithful  ones  of  Sardis  shall 
triumph  though  the  dead  church  shall  be 
blotted  out  and  buried.  The  kingdom  of 
our  Lord  will  win  the  day,  though  a 
church  here  and  there  may  become  ut- 
terly extinct.  Though  a  church  lose 
even  its  name  to  live  and  be  buried  deep 
as  the  temples  of  Sardis,  yet,  if  there  is 
but  one  faithful  soul  who  has  not  defiled 
his  garments,  he  shall  triumph  in  the  end 
and  walk  in  the  white  procession  of  vic- 
tory, for  the  kingdom  of  God  cannot 
suffer  defeat  whatever  may  be  true  of 
the  individual  church. 

This  lesson  also  is  for  us  and  for  all 
time.  It  is  a  lesson  which  every  church 
may  well  take  to  heart.  Every  individual 
Christian  whose  name,  like  those  of  the 
faithful  few  in  Sardis,  is  written  in  the 
Book  of  Life  may  be  sure  that  it  will  not 
be  blotted  out. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  a  rem- 
nant professing  a  purer  religion  than  the 


SARDIS  111 

Mohammedans  around  them  still  sur- 
vives in  the  plain  of  the  Hermus,  which 
was  once  part  of  the  dominion  of  Sardis. 
We  are  told  that  their  women  usually 
bear  Christian  names.  They  practise 
monogamy  and  divorce  is  not  permitted, 
and  they  violate  many  Mohammedan 
precepts.  It  is  believed  by  those  who 
know  them  best  that  they  would  become 
Christians  if  such  a  change  of  faith  did 
not  mean  instant  death  by  the  Moham- 
medans, who  consider  them  as  belonging 
to  one  of  their  own  sects. 

There  is,  moreover,  in  this  same  plain 
a  settlement  of  Slavs  from  Russia  who 
preserve  at  least  the  Christian  name,  and 
among  these  people,  too,  we  would  fain 
see  the  present-day  remnant  of  the  an- 
cient church  of  Sardis. 

A  dozen  filthy  Turkish  huts,  the  only 
native  village  near  the  site  of  ancient 
Sardis,  serve  to  emphasise  the  fact  that 
the  ancient  city  of  wealth  and  magnifi- 


112  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

cence  is  dead;  but  its  desolation  also 
brings  out  in  clearer  light  and  more 
vividly  the  promise  to  those  who  over- 
came, who  are  clothed  in  white  garments, 
and  whose  names  will  never  be  blotted 
out  of  the  Book  of  Life. 


CHAPTER  VII 

PHILADELPHIA,  THE  CITY  OF 
THE  OPEN  DOOR 

In  our  journey  to  the  Seven  Cities  of 
Asia  we  approached  Philadelphia  from 
the  great  table-lands  that  cover  a  large 
part  of  the  interior  of  Asia  Minor  and 
which  lie  for  the  most  part  to  the  north 
and  east  of  the  Seven  Cities.  Very  early 
on  a  crisp  winter  morning  we  had  left 
Ushak  and  its  unspeakable  hotel  for  a 
railway  journey  that  takes  one  over  as 
wild  and  picturesque  a  region  as  he  is 
likely  to  find  in  the  five  continents. 

Ushak  itself  is  by  no  means  uninter- 
esting; the  minarets  of  the  mosques  are 
tipped  with  metal,  and  as  we  left  the 
little  city  they  glittered  in  the  light  of 

113 


114  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

the  sun's  earliest  rays.  Barley,  wheat, 
and  opium  grow  in  the  rich  red  earth  of 
this  district,  and  it  is  especially  famous 
as  the  headquarters  of  the  kind  of  heavy 
carpets  which  we  call  Turkish  carpets. 
These  are  largely  made  in  private  houses 
and  some  thousands  of  women  and  girls 
are  employed  as  weavers,  while  the  men 
wash  and  dye  the  wool.  Since  carpet- 
weaving  is  the  chief  mechanical  business 
of  this  region  and  is  a  recognised  indus- 
try of  at  least  three  of  the  Seven  Cities, 
Smyrna,  Thyatira,  and  Philadelphia,  it 
may  interest  my  readers  if  I  quote  a 
paragraph  or  two  to  show,  a  little  more 
at  length  than  in  a  former  chapter,  how 
these  carpets  are  made. 

"Imagine  a  large  bare  room  in  a  pri- 
vate house;  in  front  of  us  is  a  great 
frame,  perhaps  twenty  feet  in  width;  in 
front  of  the  frame  are  seated  half  a  dozen 
women  and  girls  whose  deft  fingers  fly 
in  and  out  like  lightning  as  they  break 


PHILADELPHIA  115 

off  two   or  three  inches   of  yarn  from 
several  bunches  of  different  colours  that 
hang  over  their  heads.     With  incredible 
activity   they  knot  this   little   piece   of 
yarn  to  one  of  the  threads  of  the  web, 
choosing  with  marvellous  exactness  the 
right  shade  to  match  the  pattern  that  is 
before  them.    So  rapidly  do  their  fingers 
move  that  one  can  scarcely  follow  them 
as  with  all  the  skill  and  exact  precision 
of  a  practised  piano-player  they  break 
off  and  tie  the  little  piece  of  yarn,  reach 
for  another  of  a  different  colour,  break  it 
off  and  knot  it,  keeping  up  this  exacting 
task  for  hours  at  a  time,  until  one  aches 
in  sympathy  with  the  tired  hands  that 
are  flying  in  and  out  in  front  of  the  great 
frame  to  make  the  carpet  which  will  soon 
be  trodden  by  profane  and  dirty  feet. 

"After  a  little  of  the  wool  has  been 
knotted  to  the  web  it  is  combed  out  and 
cut  even  with  large  shears,  and  then 
pounded    down  with   a   peculiar-shaped 


116  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

hammer;  and  yet  the  most  that  a  skil- 
ful woman  can  weave  in  a  long  day's 
work  is  only  about  ten  inches  of  a  carpet 
two  feet  wide.  The  most  important  of 
the  colouring  matter  used  is  obtained 
from  the  madder  root,  which  grows  abun- 
dantly in  all  this  region  as  well  as  about 
Thyatira,  and  is  doubtless,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  colour  with  which  Lydia  dyed 
her  so-called  purple.  Of  late  years  the 
aniline  dyes  have  largely  supplanted  the 
old  Turkey  red  produced  from  the  mad- 
der root,  the  indigo  which  came  from 
India,  and  the  cochineal  from  the  Indies, 
greatly  to  the  deterioration  of  the  car- 
pets and  the  loss  of  the  carpet-buying 
public." 

But  we  are  on  our  way  to  Philadelphia 
and  cannot  linger  long  among  the  car- 
pet looms  of  Ushak.  Soon  after  leaving 
that  little  city  our  road  begins  to  wind 
down-hill,  for  Ushak  is  three  thousand 
feet  and  more  above  the  sea,  while  Ala 


PHILADELPHIA  117 

Shehr,  as  the  ancient  Philadelphia  is  now 
called,  is  only  a  few  hundred  feet  above 
the  sea.  During  the  last  part  of  the 
journey  to  Philadelphia  the  descent  is 
very  rapid,  and  the  scenery  grows  every 
moment  more  wild  and  rugged.  Through 
tunnel  after  tunnel  the  train  shoots, 
while  far  down  below  us  we  can  see  a 
great  plain  covered  with  curious  columns 
and  mounds  of  soft  rock,  which  have  been 
sculptured  by  the  storms  of  many  winters 
into  all  sorts  of  curious  shapes. 

At  last  the  foot  of  the  hill  is  reached 
and  we  come  to  the  valley  of  the  Cog- 
amus,  a  tributary  of  the  greater  Hermus. 
After  the  magnificent  views  which  the 
valley  of  the  Hermus  affords  and  of  the 
magnificent  Boz  Dagh  the  Cogamus  val- 
ley seems  rather  tame,  but  Philadelphia 
itself  is  relieved  by  some  fine  mountains 
of  the  Tmolus  range  which  form  a  splen- 
did background  for  the  ancient  city. 

A  walk  of  half  a  mile  or  thereabouts 


118  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

from  the  railway  station  brings  us  into 
the  heart  of  the  modern  city  of  Ala 
Shehr,  which,  though  by  no  means  re- 
markable for  cleanliness,  is  yet  one  of 
the  most  attractive  and  well-kept  of  the 
Turkish  cities  of  the  interior.  As  we  ap- 
proach the  city  we  see  a  rapid  stream, 
two  or  three  feet  wide,  tumbling  riotously 
down  the  main  street  over  the  sharp  cob- 
blestones, and  spanned  every  now  and 
then  by  a  board  a  foot  wide  for  the 
benefit  of  pedestrians.  This  water  comes 
from  the  hills  and  is  on  its  way  to  the 
vineyards  on  the  other  side  of  the  city. 

When  one  series  of  vineyards  has  been 
irrigated  the  water  is  turned  into  another 
street,  and  beyond  that,  irrigates  other 
acres  of  vines,  for  Ala  Shehr  is  famous 
to-day,  as  was  Philadelphia  in  the  olden 
times,  for  its  grapes  and  its  wine,  which 
Strabo  eulogised  two  thousand  years  ago. 

Ancient  volcanoes  are  not  far  away  to 
the  east  and  the  north,  and,  as  we  shall 


PHILADELPHIA  119 

see  later,  Philadelphia  has  suffered  ter- 
ribly from  earthquakes,  due  perhaps  to 
the  proximity  of  these  volcanoes.  But 
some  compensation  has  been  afforded  in 
the  volcanic  tufa  the  craters  have  vom- 
ited forth  and  which  in  the  course  of  the 
ages  has  made  the  fertile  soil  in  which 
the  vines,  the  almond,  and  the  peach 
abundantly  flourish. 

It  was  winter  when  we  left  the  table- 
lands about  Ushak  in  the  early  morning; 
it  was  late  in  the  spring  when  we  reached 
Ala  Shehr  a  few  hours  later;  the  almond- 
trees  flourished,  and  the  cherries  and 
peaches  were  great  bouquets  of  pink-and- 
white  bloom. 

There  is  little  of  special  interest  to  the 
modern  traveller  in  the  Philadelphia  of 
to-day  except  as  everything  reminds  him 
of  the  city  of  the  Revelator.  In  Sardis 
and  Pergamos  the  patient  pick  and  spade 
of  the  excavater  have  laid  bare  the  an- 
cient glories  of  these  magnificent  cities. 


120  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

But  in  Philadelphia  scarcely  a  sod  has 
been  turned  by  the  archaeologist,  except 
where  a  cellar  has  been  dug  for  some 
modern  house  and  a  few  treasures  of 
ancient  times  have  been  unearthed. 

Yet  the  every-day  life  of  these  modern 
cities  of  the  Orient  is  always  of  interest 
to  the  traveller.  Toward  sunset  great 
herds  of  ugly  black  water-buffaloes  stum- 
ble bellowing  through  the  streets,  driven 
usually  by  a  small  boy  perched  on  a 
donkey's  back.  The  public  bakeries  are 
found  in  almost  every  street,  and,  mak- 
ing their  way  toward  these  bakeries,  one 
often  sees  a  line  of  women  with  long 
wooden  trays  filled  with  unbaked  loaves 
which  will  be  thrust  far  into  the  capa- 
cious mouth  of  the  public  oven.  The 
Greek  women  can  be  distinguished  from 
the  Turkish  women  by  their  unveiled 
faces,  but  you  will  see  no  Jews  in  Ala 
Shehr,  because  its  market-day,  when  al- 
most all  the  trading  is   done,  comes  on 


PHILADELPHIA  121 

Saturday,  and  it  would  be  a  profanation 
for  a  devout  Jew  to  buy  or  sell  or  get 
gain  on  the  Sabbath  day. 

Possibly  the  shrewd  Greeks,  who  num- 
ber about  five  thousand  out  of  twenty 
thousand  men,  women,  and  children  of 
modern  Philadelphia,  have  decreed  that 
the  Jewish  Sabbath  shall  be  their  market- 
day  for  the  express  purpose  of  excluding 
the  Hebrews  from  their  city. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  be- 
neficent natural  products  of  Ala  Shehr 
is  a  splendid  spring  of  mineral  water, 
famous  from  the  time  of  the  Apostles. 
The  spring  rises  a  mile  from  the  city 
and  is  brought  in  pipes  to  a  modest  hy- 
dropathic establishment  near  the  town, 
where  the  water  is  bottled  in  large  quan- 
tities and  sent  all  over  Asia  Minor.  It 
is  a  refreshing,  tonicky  water,  something 
like  Apollinaris,  and  is  an  untold  boon 
to  travellers  in  Asia  Minor,  since  it  can 
be  had  in  almost  every  town  of  any  size 


122  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

where  the  ordinary  water  is  filled  with 
all  sorts  of  dangerous  microbes  and  is 
undrinkable  by  the  stranger. 

Though  almost  no  excavation  work 
has  been  done  in  Philadelphia,  there  are 
many  indications  that  it  would  be  most 
rewarding  could  any  one  be  found  with 
time  and  money  to  unearth  the  buried 
treasures.  In  digging  the  foundations 
for  a  Greek  school  an  ancient  Greek 
cemetery  was  discovered  with  many  beau- 
tiful stelae,  funeral  urns,  and  mourning 
figures;  these  are  preserved  in  one  of  the 
rooms  of  the  school,  which  appeared  to 
be  an  admirable  institution  for  so  remote 
a  town. 

We  were  told  that  in  a  vineyard  near 
by  the  workmen  who  were  setting  out 
vines  had  recently  fallen  through  the 
earth  into  some  large  underground  cham- 
bers. Going  out  to  the  vineyard,  we 
found  that  the  rumour  was  true,  and 
here,  a  few  feet  under  the  surface,  were 


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PHILADELPHIA  123 

arches  of  brick  and  stone  and  chambers 
with  mural  decorations  still  fresh,  though 
the  painter  had  been  dead  perhaps  for 
two  thousand  years.  Wreaths  of  flowers 
tied  with  ribbons  seemed  to  be  the  chief 
decorations  for  these  chambers,  which 
perhaps  were  sepulchres  of  the  olden 
times,  though  so  far  as  I  know  no  one 
has  yet  discovered  their  use. 

The  ruins  of  Philadelphia  are  few  and 
uninteresting,  and  I  was  not  able  to  dis- 
cover the  great  pillar  which  some  mod- 
ern commentators  declare  is  to  be  found 
there,  reminiscent  of  the  pillar  spoken  of 
in  the  Revelation.  The  most  interesting 
Greek  church  which  we  visited  contains  a 
picture  of  the  Revelator's  vision,  painted 
by  an  artist  whose  name  and  fame  have 
been  forgotten  in  the  long  passage  of 
the  centuries.  It  represents  our  Lord  in 
the  midst  of  the  "seven  golden  candle- 
sticks" clothed  with  a  long  garment 
down   to   his  feet  and  girt  about  with 


124  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

a  golden  girdle.  In  his  right  hand  were 
the  seven  stars,  and  out  of  his  mouth 
went  a  sharp  two-edged  sword.  In 
various  corners  of  the  picture  were  the 
seven  churches,  some  of  which  looked 
not  unlike  old  New  England  meeting- 
houses, while  at  the  bottom  of  the  pic- 
ture, under  the  feet  of  his  Lord,  lay  the 
prostrate  John.  The  crude  literalism  of 
the  painting  was  most  interesting,  es- 
pecially as  one  viewed  it  in  one  of  the 
Seven  Cities  to  which  He  wrote  who  had 
in  His  right  hand  seven  stars,  out  of  whose 
mouth  went  a  sharp,  two-edged  sword, 
whose  countenance  was  as  the  sun  shin- 
ing in  his  strength,  and  before  whom  the 
Revelator  fell  at  his  feet  as  dead. 

Ala  Shehr  rises  from  the  plain  through 
which  the  railway  runs  and  largely  covers 
the  slope  of  a  commanding  hill  from  the 
top  of  which  a  splendid  view  can  be  ob- 
tained. Between  this  hill  and  the  Tmolus 
is  a  deep  valley,  and  up  the  long  cleft  of 


PHILADELPHIA  125 

the  Hermus  to  the  table-land  of  Asia 
Minor  the  eye  is  never  tired  of  gazing, 
so  charming  is  the  scene.  It  was  this 
situation  that  gave  to  the  Philadelphia 
of  old  its  importance  and  its  unique  in- 
terest. This  long  valley  of  which  it 
seemed  to  be  the  guardian  was  the  open 
door  to  Phrygia  and  all  the  region  be- 
yond, and  the  most  striking  figure  of  the 
sacred  message  to  this  church  is  derived 
from  this  thought  of  Philadelphia  as 
"the  open  door  which  no  man  could 
shut"  to  the  regions  beyond. 

Sir  William  Ramsay  designates  it  as 
the  "missionary  city,"  because  it  was 
established  by  its  founder,  Attalus  II, 
about  a  century  and  a  half  before  Christ, 
to  become  the  centre  of  Graeco-Asiatic 
civilisation,  to  spread  the  knowledge  of 
the  Greek  language  and  customs  through- 
out the  eastern  part  of  Lydia,  where  it 
was  situated,  and  far  on  into  Phrygia.  It 
was  a  missionary  city,  he  says,  from  the 


126  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

beginning,  founded  to  promote  a  cer- 
tain unity  of  spirit,  customs,  and  loyalty 
within  the  realm,  the  apostle  of  Helle- 
nism in  an  Oriental  land. 

It  was  a  successful  teacher.  Before 
A.  D.  19  the  Lydian  tongue  had  ceased 
to  be  spoken  in  Lydia  and  Greek  was 
the  only  language  of  the  country.  We 
have  already  seen  in  our  chapter  about 
Sardis  how  completely  the  Greek  lan- 
guage had  supplanted  the  Lydian,  and 
the  Lydian  tablets  which  have  recently 
been  discovered  by  the  American  ar- 
chaeologists are  still  untranslatable,  so 
completely  did  Philadelphia  do  its  mis- 
sionary work  and  make  the  Greek  lan- 
guage and  literature  and  spirit  dominant 
throughout  all  the  land. 

The  beautiful  name  Philadelphia  was 
derived  from  the  founder  of  the  city, 
Attalus  Philadelphus,  who  was  so  called 
because  of  his  marked  affection  and  loy- 
alty  to  his  brother  Eumenes.     On   the 


PHILADELPHIA  127 

ancient  coins  of  Philadelphia  are  shown 
the  two  brothers  exactly  alike  in  limb 
and  feature  and  garb,  an  identity  which 
symbolised  their  mutual  unity  and  affec- 
tion. One  of  these  coins  represents  them 
as  looking  upon  the  genius  of  Ephesus  as 
she  carries  an  image  of  her  own  goddess 
Diana  toward  her  temple.  This  coin  was 
struck  to  commemorate  the  alliance  of 
Philadelphia  and  Ephesus. 

I  have  already  said  that  Philadelphia 
occupied  a  strategic  position  at  the  en- 
trance to  the  long  Hermus  valley,  and 
that  it  was  the  open  door  to  all  the  region 
beyond.  It  was  also  on  the  imperial 
post-road  which,  starting  from  Rome, 
crossed  Italy,  the  Adriatic,  Macedonia, 
and  the  ^Egean,  and  then,  after  reaching 
Asian  soil,  went  by  way  of  Troas,  Perga- 
mos,  and  Sardis,  through  Philadelphia 
and  on  to  the  far  East.  So  by  nature, 
as  well  as  by  the  works  of  man  (and  for 
nothing  were  the  Romans  more  famous 


128  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

than  for  their  magnificent  post-roads), 
Philadelphia  was  the  "open  door"  to  the 
more  undeveloped  peoples  in  the  far 
region  eastward. 

Another  event  in  the  history  of  Phila- 
delphia must  be  recorded  before  we  can 
fully  understand  the  message  of  the 
Revelator.  In  the  year  seventeen  of  the 
Christian  era  occurred  a  terrible  earth- 
quake. We  have  already  noted  how  it 
destroyed  the  great  Temple  of  Artemis 
in  Sardis,  built  by  Alexander  the  Great. 
Sardis  was  perhaps  the  more  completely 
ruined  in  this  awful  cataclysm,  but 
twelve  other  cities  were  also  destroyed; 
one  of  these  was  Philadelphia. 

Strabo  tells  us  that  in  some  respects 
Philadelphia  was  the  worst  sufferer  of 
all,  since  for  several  years  after  the  earth- 
quake the  earth  tremors  continued,  mak- 
ing it  unsafe  to  live  within  the  confines 
of  the  city,  so  that  the  great  majority  of 
the  inhabitants  moved  away  or  estab- 


PHILADELPHIA  129 

lished  themselves  in  tents  in  the  sur- 
rounding country.  Every  one  who  chose 
to  live  in  Philadelphia  at  this  period  was 
considered  a  fool  by  outsiders,  just  as 
we  wonder  to-day  how  the  natives  in  the 
region  of  Vesuvius  can  build  their  houses 
and  plant  their  vineyards  time  after  time 
on  the  slopes  of  the  mountain  which  has 
so  often  poured  forth  its  burning  lava 
and  swallowed  up  the  farms,  the  homes, 
and  people  who  trustingly  built  their 
houses  upon  its  side. 

The  whole  earthquake  region  on  the 
edge  of  which  Philadelphia  was  situated 
was  called  Katakekaumene,  or  Burnt 
District.  The  Emperor  Tiberius,  who 
was  then  upon  the  throne,  provided 
liberally  from  the  royal  treasury  for 
Philadelphia  and  the  other  ruined  cities, 
and  in  memory  of  his  generosity  the 
Philadelphians  took  another  name  and 
called  their  city  Neokaisareia,  the  New 
Caesar.    A  temple  was  also  built  in  honour 


130  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

of  the  Emperor,  but  whether  of  Tiberius 
or  Germanicus,  his  son,  is  not  quite  cer- 
tain. However,  this  temple  and  the  new 
name  of  the  city  apparently  did  not  last 
long.  It  soon  resumed  its  ancient  and 
more  mellifluous  name,  and  the  new  tem- 
ple, it  is  thought,  soon  fell  into  decay. 

Now  we  can  understand,  perhaps,  more 
clearly  the  message  of  the  Spirit  unto  the 
church  of  Philadelphia.  He  who  wrote  it 
was  the  holy  and  the  true,  the  one  who 
had  the  key  of  David,  the  one  who 
openeth  and  no  man  shutteth,  and  shut- 
teth  and  no  man  openeth.  His  very  title 
evidently  refers  to  the  open  door,  which 
in  the  next  verse  he  says  he  has  set  before 
the  church  of  Philadelphia. 

The  open  door  was  a  familiar  metaphor 
to  the  Christians  of  Saint  John's  time. 
Saint  Paul  used  it  over  and  over  again. 
At  Ephesus  he  tells  us  a  "great  door 
and  effectual'  is  opened  to  him.  At 
Troas,  too,  a  door  was  opened,  and  the 


PHILADELPHIA  131 

Colossians  were  asked  to  pray  that  God 
may  "open  unto  us  a  door  for  the  word 
of  utterance  to  speak  the  mystery  of 
Christ."  Though  the  church  has  only 
a  little  strength,  no  man  can  shut  this 
door  of  opportunity.  It  is  interesting 
to  note  that  no  word  of  even  implied 
censure  is  spoken  to  the  church  of  Phila- 
delphia. It  shares  this  distinction  with 
Smyrna  alone,  and  it  seems  no  mere 
coincidence,  in  spite  of  the  ridicule  that 
Mark  Twain  cast  upon  the  idea,  that 
these  two  cities  alone  of  all  the  seven 
have  maintained  continuously  the  wor- 
ship of  Christ  through  all  the  centuries 
since  this  letter  was  written,  while  the 
others  have  been  given  wholly  over  to  the 
worship  of  the  Turks. 

'Because  thou  didst  keep  the  word  of 
my  patience,  I  also  will  keep  thee  from 
the  hour  of  trial,"  says  the  Revelator. 
The  Philadelphians,  indeed,  knew  what 
the  hour  of  trial  was:  the  terrible  earth- 


132  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

quake,  the  ruin  of  the  city,  its  bad  name 
as  an  unsafe  place  for  residence — which 
adhered  to  it,  perhaps,  until  the  time 
that  this  letter  was  written,  for  during 
many  years  the  inhabitants  dared  not 
live  within  the  confines  of  the  city  but 
camped  out  in  the  open  fields. 

All  these  memories  were  fresh  at  this 
time  and  gave  new  significance  to  the 
beautiful  promise  to  him  that  over- 
cometh:  "I  will  make  him  a  pillar  in  the 
temple  of  my  God,  and  he  shall  go  out 
thence  no  more."  No  longer  in  the  new 
Jerusalem  the  inhabitants  would  have  to 
leave  an  earthquake-shaken  city,  but  he 
would  be  established  as  a  pillar  immov- 
able in  the  holy  temple,  and  upon  him 
would  be  written  a  new  name.  On  the 
pillars  of  the  temple  dedicated  to  the 
Roman  Emperor  was  doubtless  written 
the  new  name  of  Philadelphia,  Neo- 
kaisareia,  but  neither  this  name  nor  the 
temple  on  which  it  was  engraved  lasted 


PHILADELPHIA  133 

long,  but  the  name  in  the  temple  of  the 
new  Jerusalem  would  endure  for  ever. 

The  later  history  of  Philadelphia  was 
worthy  of  its  early  promise  and  of  the 
cordial  commendatory  words  of  the  Spirit. 
It  long  maintained  itself  as  a  Christian 
city  when  all  the  rest  of  Asia  Minor  had 
yielded  to  the  Turk.  It  endured  siege 
after  siege.  It  was  defended  with  heroic 
valour  by  its  Christian  inhabitants.  They 
endured  starvation,  massacre,  almost  an- 
nihilation before  at  last  they  yielded  to 
the  Seljukian  Turks  toward  the  end  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  hundreds  of  years 
after  the  companion  cities  had  been  con- 
quered. Even  the  cool-blooded  and  often 
contemptuous  Gibbon  is  aroused  to  some- 
thing like  enthusiasm  as  he  contemplates 
the  heroism  of  the  early  Philadelphians, 
and  we  may  well  close  this  story  of  the 
City  of  the  Open  Door  with  his  eulogy: 

"In  the  loss  of  Ephesus  the  Christians 
deplored  the  fall  of  the  first  angel,  the 


134  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

extinction  of  the  first  candlestick  of  the 
Revelation.  .  .  .  The  circus  and  three 
stately  theatres  of  Laodicea  are  now  peo- 
pled with  wolves  and  foxes;  Sardis  is 
reduced  to  a  miserable  village;  the  God 
of  Mahomet  without  a  rival  or  a  son 
is  invoked  in  the  mosques  of  Thyatira 
and  Pergamos,  and  the  populousness  of 
Smyrna  is  supported  by  the  foreign  trade 
of  Franks  and  Armenians.  Philadelphia 
alone  has  been  saved  by  prophecy  or 
courage.  .  .  .  Among  the  Greek  colonies 
and  churches  of  Asia,  Philadelphia  is  still 
erect,  a  column  in  a  scene  of  ruins,  a 
pleasing  example  that  the  paths  of  honour 
and  safety  may  sometimes  be  the  same." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LAODICEA  THE  LUKEWARM 

I  have  considered  the  Seven  Cities  of 
Asia  in  the  order  in  which  they  are  given 
in  the  book  of  Revelation,  but  the  order 
in  which  the  modern  traveller  naturally 
visits  them  is  to  combine  in  one  excursion 
the  first  and  the  last,  Ephesus  and  Laod- 
icea,  for  these  two  cities  are  upon  the 
same  line  of  railway— a  well-managed 
English  line  that  runs  southeast  from 
Smyrna.  If  we  examine  a  map  of  the 
ancient  province  of  Asia  which  occupied 
the  western  part  of  Asia  Minor  in  Roman 
times  we  shall  see  that  a  line  drawn 
through  the  Seven  Cities  forms  an  ir- 
regular, oblong  figure  with  Pergamos  at 

135 


136  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

its  northern  point,  Smyrna  and  Ephesus 
on  the  extreme  western  edge,  Thyatira, 
Sardis,  and  Philadelphia  on  the  north- 
east, and  Laodicea  at  the  extreme  south- 
eastern point.  The  distance,  in  a  straight 
line  between  Ephesus  and  Pergamos,  is 
something  over  a  hundred  miles.  Ephe- 
sus is  some  forty  miles  from  Smyrna  and 
about  eighty  miles  from  Laodicea. 

While  no  one  of  the  Seven  Cities  is,  as 
the  crow  flies,  more  than  two-score  miles 
from  one  of  its  neighbours,  the  extent  of 
the  country  occupied  by  these  cities  is 
very  considerable. 

The  journey  from  Ephesus  to  Laodicea 
is  a  most  interesting  one.  Throughout 
the  whole  distance  it  follows  the  valley 
of  the  Meander  or  its  scarcely  less  cele- 
brated tributary  the  Lycus,  which  joins 
the  Meander  shortly  before  we  get  to 
Laodicea.  This  is  the  greatest  fig  region 
in  the  world,  for  most  of  the  celebrated 
Smyrna    figs    come    from    the    Meander 


LAODICEA  137 

valley,  and  throughout  almost  its  whole 
length  we  see  the  beautiful,  shapely 
trees,  with  their  smooth  white  bark, 
which  have  contributed  throughout  all  the 
ages  so  much  to  the  wealth  of  the  prov- 
ince. Cotton  and  tobacco  and  maize  are 
also  raised  in  this  fertile  valley.  We  look 
with  constant  interest  upon  the  crooked 
Meander,  which  winds  in  and  out  through- 
out the  whole  length  of  the  valley.  Visions 
of  college  classics,  of  the  mythical  stories 
of  childhood,  are  brought  to  our  minds 
by  every  turn  of  the  meandering  stream, 
and  its  banks  in  the  springtime,  bright 
with  millions  of  gorgeous  anemones,  make 
it  seem  the  fit  abiding-place  for  the 
spirits  and  sprites  with  which  mythology 
peopled  its  banks. 

Every  town  at  which  our  train  stops 
beckons  to  us  to  leave  the  cars  and  pay 
it  a  visit,  for  each  one  is  full  of  classic 
interest.  But  we  cannot  linger  to  see 
the  ruins  of  old  Magnesia,  so  old  that  it 


138  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

was  destroyed  by  Cimmerians  more  than 
twenty-five  hundred  years  ago,  or  Tralles, 
where  the  great  Attalus  once  had  his 
palaces,  or  Sultan  Hissar,  where  Strabo, 
the  historian,  to  whom  we  are  so  much 
indebted  for  our  knowledge  of  ancient 
men  and  manners,  once  went  to  school. 
The  modern  Turkish  names  of  many  of 
these  stations  on  the  way  to  Laodicea  are 
most  interesting;  for  instance,  Balachik 
means  "Little  Place  up  Above";  Deir- 
manjak  means  "Dear  Little  Mill";  while 
a  station  still  farther  south,  called  Kuyu- 
kak,  means  "Dear  Little  Well." 

At  last,  after  a  journey  which  had 
taken  nearly  the  whole  day,  though  we 
had  covered  less  than  a  hundred  miles 
from  Ephesus,  the  conductor  calls  out, 
"Gonjeli,"  and  we  know  that  we  have 
reached  the  station  at  the  foot  of  the 
great  hill  which  is  covered  with  the  ruins 
of  Laodicea,  where  once  was  a  proud, 
rich  city  and  a  church  which  received  the 


LAODICEA  139 

most  scathing  rebuke  of  any  which  was 
spoken  by  the  Spirit  to  any  one  of  the 
Seven  Churches  of  Asia. 

Laodicea,  like  Philadelphia,  was  a  City 
of  the  Open  Door.  It  was  founded  by 
Antiochus  III  some  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  before  Christ  as  a  guardian  of  the 
great  road  from  Smyrna  and  Ephesus  to 
the  Meander  valley,  to  Phrygia  and  to 
the  uplands  of  Anatolia.  It  had  a  com- 
manding position  on  the  lower  valley  of 
the  Lycus,  and  all  the  merchandise  and 
all  the  soldiers  and  their  equipments,  and 
all  the  officials  of  the  Greek  and  Roman 
empires,  in  their  turn,  had  to  pass  through 
this  great  city  on  their  way  to  the  far 
East  or  on  their  return  from  the  interior 
of  Asia. 

To  be  sure,  the  important  highway 
that  passed  through  Philadelphia  reached, 
in  a  measure,  the  same  back  country,  but 
the  pass  to  the  uplands  which  was  guarded 
by  Laodicea  was  less  steep  and  rugged 


140  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

than  the  road  beyond  Philadelphia,  and 
the  natural  advantages  were  apparently 
altogether  with  the  former  city.  By  rea- 
son of  these  advantages  Laodicea  grew 
rich  and  prosperous.  It  became  famous 
for  its  banking-houses  and  its  million- 
aires, but  with  all  its  wealth  and  pros- 
perity it  did  not  perform  its  mission  as 
well  as  poor  Philadelphia.  It  seems  to 
have  made  little  impression  on  the  Phryg- 
ian tribes  and  to  have  accomplished 
little  for  the  introduction  of  the  Greek 
language  and  civilisation  in  which  Phila- 
delphia was  so  successful. 

Laodicea  was  especially  famous  for 
two  things,  its  wool  and  its  medicine. 
A  peculiar  kind  of  sheep  with  long,  soft, 
glossy  black  wool  had  long  been  bred  in 
this  neighbourhood.  The  secret  of  rais- 
ing this  breed  of  sheep  has  now  been 
lost,  but  in  the  days  of  Saint  John  this 
glossy  wool,  which  came  from  Laodicea 
and  was  there  woven  into  beautiful  and 


LAODICEA  141 

costly  garments,  was  famous  throughout 
the  world. 

The  city  was  also  famous  for  its  phy- 
sicians and  its  medicines.  An  especial 
and  noted  school  of  medicine  flourished 
in  Laodicea.  We  are  told  "that  this 
school  of  physicians  followed  the  teach- 
ings of  Herophilos,  who  lived  about  three 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  and  who, 
on  the  principle  that  compound  diseases 
require  compound  medicines,  began  that 
strange  system  of  heterogeneous  mix- 
tures, some  of  which  have  only  lately 
been  expelled  from  our  own  pharmaco- 
pceia. 

The  fearful  and  wonderful  combina- 
tion of  drugs  given  by  some  modern 
doctors  would  seem  to  indicate  that  they 
still  belong  to  this  school  of  Laodicea. 
One  of  the  medicines  for  which  Laod- 
icea was  famous  was  an  ointment  for 
"strengthening  the  ears,"  whatever  that 
may  mean,   while   another  medicine  of 


142  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

still  more  interest  to  the  student  of 
Revelation  was  the  "Phrygian  powder," 
made  in  part  from  a  peculiar  kind  of 
stone  pressed  into  tabloids,  afterward 
powdered  and  mixed  with  some  ingre- 
dient, to  be  rubbed  on  the  eye  as  a  cure 
for  the  various  diseases  which  afflict  the 
optics  in  Eastern  countries.  The  world- 
famous  Galen  speaks  of  both  these  rem- 
edies in  his  pharmacopoeia. 

Another  far  more  useful  medicine, 
which,  so  far  as  we  know,  Galen  does  not 
mention,  also  grows  now  and  probably 
in  his  time  grew  in  great  abundance 
about  Laodicea.  This  is  the  humble 
licorice  root  which  is  exported  in  large 
quantities  from  all  this  region.  One  of 
the  commonest  sights  about  Laodicea  in 
the  spring  of  the  year  is  a  company  of 
veiled  Turkish  women  pulling  the  long 
roots  of  licorice  which  grow  wild  and  in 
great  abundance,  and  which  will  after- 
ward be  chewed  with  supreme  delight  by 


LAODICEA  143 

small  boys  in  many  parts  of  the  world 
and  will  also  be  made  up  into  powder  for 
medicinal  purposes. 

On  this  great  hill,  whose  base  the  rail- 
way now  skirts,  once  stood  the  proud 
and  wealthy  city  of  Laodicea.  Its  banks, 
its  woollen  factories,  its  medical  schools, 
its  impregnable  fortifications,  its  great 
garrisons  of  soldiers,  were  famous  in  all 
the  region  round  about.  The  great  men 
of  the  world  visited  it.  Its  products 
were  sought  for  in  the  bazaars  of  all  the 
nations.  It  was  "rich  and  increased  with 
goods  and  had  need  of  nothing.'5  But 
what  do  we  see  to-day?  It  is  the  most 
desolate  and  God-forsaken  of  all  the 
Seven  Cities.  Even  Sardis,  though  quite 
as  dead,  is  far  more  interesting  to  the 
traveller.  The  barren,  utterly  deserted 
hill  on  which  Laodicea  stood  rises  above 
the  mean  little  Turkish  village  of  Eski 
Hissar  and  contains  not  a  single  inhabi- 
tant.     No   wandering    shepherd,    even, 


144  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

pastures  his  flocks  among  the  ruins;  no 
living  creature  picks  a  scanty  subsistence 
from  between  the  rocks  which  strew  the 
ground  so  thickly  that  scarcely  a  blade 
of  grass  can  grow. 

At  least,  this  was  the  impression  that 
we  received  when  late  on  the  day  of  our 
arrival  at  the  ruins  we  made  our  way 
over  the  historic  blocks  of  marble  and 
granite  and  tried  to  reproduce  in  our 
imagination  the  ancient  glories  of  Laod- 
icea  which  have  for  ever  passed  away. 
Its  former  greatness,  however,  is  shown 
by  its  ruins.  They  cover  hundreds  of 
acres,  and  though  they  have  been  quar- 
ried for  a  thousand  years  by  all  the  vil- 
lagers round  about,  who  have  built  their 
walls,  their  houses,  and  their  pigsties 
from  the  marbles  of  the  ancient  city,  yet 
there  is  good  building  material  enough 
left  to  erect  another  city  to-day  on  the 
site  of  the  ancient  metropolis. 

Here  are  the  ruins  of  a  mighty  temple. 


LAODICEA  145 

Some  of  its  stones  I  measured,  and  found 
them  to  be  four  feet  long  and  three  feet 
thick.  There  are  the  ruins  of  a  noble 
aqueduct  which  brought  water  from  a 
hill  miles  away  through  a  valley  which 
lies  between  the  Hill  of  Fountains  and 
Laodicea,  and  then  carried  the  water  by 
a  siphon  system,  which  would  do  credit 
to  any  modern  hydraulic  engineer,  to  the 
top  of  a  large  stone  tower,  part  of  which 
is  still  standing  with  the  pipes  yet  visible 
which  tell  of  ancient  Laodicea's  splendid 
water-works.  But  this  aqueduct  also 
tells  of  Laodicea's  weakness,  for  all  the 
water  had  to  be  brought  from  a  distance, 
and  in  the  case  of  war  with  a  determined 
enemy,  though  the  pipes  were  brought 
underground  much  of  the  way,  a  water 
famine  in  Laodicea  would  soon  be  threat- 
ened. 

But  what  impressed  me  most  were  the 
vast  theatres  and  the  stadium,  for  they 
seemed  to  tell  more  of  the  character  of 


146  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

the  people  than  any  of  the  other  ruins. 
The  two  theatres  are  still  in  a  very  fair 
state  of  preservation.  Many  of  the 
stone  seats  are  still  in  place.  Each  one 
is  built  in  a  natural  amphitheatre,  and  I 
estimated  that  together  they  would  seat 
from  fifty  to  seventy  thousand  people. 
The  great  stadium,  where  the  athletic 
events  took  place,  was  also  an  enormous 
affair,  whose  outlines  are  plainly  visible. 
Many  of  the  seats  of  the  stadium  are 
also  still  in  place,  and  on  pacing  its  length 
I  found  it  to  be  at  least  half  as  long  again 
as  the  magnificent  stadium  in  Athens, 
which  seats  ninety  thousand  people. 
Probably  not  less  than  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  people  could  find  seats  in 
this  mighty  amphitheatre. 

And  yet  Laodicea  was  not  a  world 
metropolis.  Though  prosperous  and  pop- 
ulous, it  was  still  a  small  city  as  com- 
pared with  the  great  capitals  of  antiquity. 
Do   not   these   great  theatres  and   this 


LAODICEA  147 

mighty  stadium  give  us  one  clew  to  the 
degeneration  of  Laodicea,  and  the  sever- 
ity of  the  message  which  the  Spirit  sent 
to  the  angel  of  its  church? 

It  was  evidently  a  pleasure-loving  city, 
whose  places  of  amusement  provided 
seats  at  one  time  for  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  city  and  the  surrounding  country. 
They  would  not  have  been  built  on  this 
immense  scale  were  they  not  well  pa- 
tronised. The  theatres  of  a  city  tell  of 
its  character,  as  well  as  its  churches. 

The  only  relief  which  the  traveller 
finds  in  visiting  Laodicea  he  gains  from 
the  mighty  mountains  of  God  which  sur- 
round it.  Snow-clad  hills  eight  thousand 
and  ten  thousand  feet  high  keep  guard 
over  the  city  to  the  south.  In  no  other 
part  of  Asia  Minor  did  we  see  more  mag- 
nificent mountains.  One  of  our  party 
described  them  as  rising  in  tiers  one  be- 
hind the  other,  peering  over  each  other's 
shoulders  as  they  seemed  to  gaze  down 


148  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

upon  the  doomed  city  which  was  once  so 
proud  and  self-satisfied.  It  had  all  that 
heart  could  wish.  Money  flowed  into  it 
from  all  quarters.  The  Phrygians  con- 
tributed their  share;  from  Ephesus  and 
Smyrna  came  golden  stores;  its  glossy 
black  sheep  were  found  nowhere  else 
and  greatly  contributed  to  its  wealth ;  its 
medicines  were  believed  in  implicitly  and 
were  sought  by  the  credulous  from  all 
parts  of  the  world. 

And  yet  it  made  no  great  impression, 
morally  or  religiously,  upon  the  people 
round  about  it.  It  was  not  a  missionary 
city  like  Philadelphia;  it  did  not  enter 
the  open  door  which  was  placed  before  it; 
it  seems  to  have  done  little  or  nothing 
to  civilise  the  rude  tribes  of  the  uplands 
though  the  road  to  them  led  past  its  very 
gates.  It  was  content  to  make  money 
and  to  care  for  its  own  interests. 

In  the  reign  of  Nero  it  was  shaken  by  a 
tremendous  earthquake  and  partially  de- 


LAODICEA  149 

stroyed,  but  it  was  too  proud  to  receive 
aid  from  the  government  or  from  the 
neighbouring  cities  as  other  municipali- 
ties had  done  under  like  circumstances. 
It  took  care  of  its  own  destitute  people 
and  managed  its  own  affairs,  apparently 
neither  borrowing  from  nor  lending  to 
others. 

And  yet,  so  far  as  we  know,  it  was  not 
an  unusually  wicked  city.  It  was  not 
famed  for  its  licentiousness  or  its  roguery, 
as  were  some  of  the  other  cities  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  It  had  a  good  name  in 
the  commercial  world.  It  paid  its  bills 
and  set  a  good  example  of  law  and  order, 
but  it  missed  the  highest  aims.  It  ap- 
parently had  no  great  ideals.  Money- 
making  and  money-spending  satisfied  it. 
The  Christians  of  the  city  evidently  fell 
into  the  same  complacent,  self-satisfied 
attitude  as  the  rest  of  the  people.  They 
were  content  to  let  well  enough  alone, 
and  to  seek  not  first  the  kingdom  of  God 


150  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

and  his  righteousness  but  their  own  ease 
and  comfort  and  wealth. 

Because  of  this  came  to  them  the 
scathing  rebuke  of  the  Revelator,  and  be- 
cause of  this  the  very  name  of  their  city 
has  become  a  reproach  and  a  byword 
throughout  the  world.  A  Laodicean  is 
one  of  the  meanest  types  of  mankind. 
He  is  neither  cold  nor  hot;  he  has  lost 
his  enthusiasm;  he  has  no  great  purpose 
except  to  be  comfortable,  and  so  he 
causes  the  man  of  fine  moral  purpose  to 
spew  him  out  of  his  mouth. 

The  seventeenth  verse  of  the  third 
chapter  of  Revelation  describes  the  at- 
titude of  the  Laodiceans.  "I  am  rich," 
they  say,  "and  increased  with  goods  and 
have  need  of  nothing."  But  the  Spirit 
said  to  them:  "Thou  art  wretched  and 
miserable  and  poor  and  blind  and  naked." 
Physical  repletion  and  moral  emptiness; 
material  wealth  and  spiritual  poverty: 
that  was  the  character  of  Laodicea. 


LAODICEA  151 

But  evidently  their  case  was  not  quite 
hopeless.  They  were  counselled  to  buy 
true  gold,  gold  which  would  make  them 
rich  in  spirit  rather  than  in  purse,  and 
white  raiment,  the  robe  of  righteousness, 
that  they  might  be  clothed,  instead  of  the 
glossy  black  cloth  made  from  their  fa- 
mous wool,  and  eye-salve  which  would 
open  their  spiritual  eyes  instead  of  the 
Phrygian  powder  which  might  benefit 
their  weak  physical  sight. 

In  this  message,  as  in  every  other,  the 
Spirit  fits  his  words  of  warning  to  the 
peculiar  circumstances  of  the  church  to 
which  he  writes,  and  none  more  exactly 
suits  the  circumstances  of  the  time  and 
place  than  the  warning  to  the  lukewarm 
city. 

Now  we  come  to  the  end  of  the  mes- 
sages of  the  Seven  Cities.  There  are  but 
four  verses  more.  Sir  William  Ramsay 
considers  them  as  an  epilogue  which  ap- 
plies  not   to   Laodicea   but   to   all    the 


152  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

churches.  "All  reference  to  the  Laodi- 
ceans  has  ceased,"  he  says,  "and  the 
writer  is  drifting  further  and  further 
away  from  them."  However,  since  that 
is  a  matter  of  opinion,  I  prefer  to  believe 
that  these  later  and  more  hopeful  words 
of  the  chapter  apply  to  the  Laodiceans 
as  well  as  to  the  other  churches:  "As 
many  as  I  love  I  rebuke  and  chasten." 
Surely  the  Laodiceans  were  chastened  in 
the  years  that  follow.  Though  their  love 
had  grown  cold  and  their  zeal  feeble,  yet 
the  Master  says:  "Behold  I  stand  at  the 
door  and  knock."  There  was  still  a 
chance  for  the  church  of  Laodicea  to  open 
the  door  of  its  heart  to  him  that  he  might 
come  in  and  sup.  There  was  still  a  chance 
for  them  to  repent  and  overcome  and  to 
sit  with  him  on  his  throne. 

Many  a  tribulation  came  to  the  city  in 
later  years,  earthquake  shock  and  fire  and 
siege;  and  for  long  it  held  out  against 
the  Mohammedans,  as  did  its  sister  city 


LAODICEA  153 

Philadelphia,  though  not  so  long  nor  so 
courageously  as  did  that  valiant  town. 
We  read  of  another  city  in  this  same 
region,  Eumeneia  by  name,  which  en- 
dured great  persecution.    In  its  days  of 
prosperity  it  was  much  like  Laodicea  it- 
self.   Christians  accepted  the  Greek  cul- 
ture, accommodating  themselves  to  the 
life  of  the  times,  apparently  in  no  very 
heroic  spirit,  but  when  the  persecutions 
of  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  century 
arose,  the  last  great  Christian  persecu- 
tion,   the    people    all    gathered    in    the 
church,  contrary  to  the  imperial  edict.    A 
battalion  of  Roman  soldiers  surrounded 
the  church.     They  offered  to  spare  the 
lives  of  the  Christians  if  they  would  re- 
cant, but  not  one  accepted  the  proposal. 
Every  one  clung  to  his  faith  and  all  were 
burned  with  the  church  in  which  they 
had  taken  refuge. 

May  we  not  also  hope  that  in   the 
neighbouring  city  of  Laodicea  the  luke- 


154  THE  SEVEN  CHURCHES 

warm  Christians,  aroused  by  the  message 
of  the  Revelator,  rebuked  by  his  stinging 
reproaches,  chastened  by  misfortune,  re- 
pented and  renewed  their  zeal,  opened  the 
door  for  the  Master's  entrance,  and  finally 
were  among  those  who  overcame  the  luke- 
warmness  of  the  past,  the  disadvantages 
of  an  easy  prosperity,  and  at  last  "sat 
down  with  Him  on  His  throne5  because 
they  had  heard  and  heeded  what  the  Spirit 
said  unto  the  churches  ? 


Date  Due 

•yipiniliP*! 

f 

<$) 

II 


DS48.3.C6 

The  Holy  Land  of  Asia  Minor; 

Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00022  6490 


